ZAGREB, January 8, 2019 – The president of the BM 365 – Party of Work and Solidarity, Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandić, said on Tuesday he dismissed “with indignation” accusations that he was paying MPs to join his parliamentary group, adding that the group’s door is wide open to everyone.
“I’m not wooing anyone, I’m not appealing to anyone and I’m not buying anyone because I don’t think people are commodities. I reject that with indignation, but the door isn’t closed to anyone. The door is wide open, and will be in the future too, to the honest, fair and proven man who wants to help his neighbourhood association, municipality, town, county and family and realise his political ambition,” Bandić said at a press conference.
Quoting Marx and Engels’ proclamation “A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of communism,” Bandić said “the spectre of work and solidarity is haunting Zagreb and Croatia.” He said the problem has arisen solely because his parliamentary group was joined by MPs “who’ve had enough of party leaders who aren’t up to the job, and parties have become an end in themselves.”
Bandić said that over the past three months his party was joined by 250 people from other parties, from MPs, county deputies, mayors and municipal heads to chairs of neighbourhood committees in Zagreb, and that more people would join in the months ahead.
Bandić said Croatia did not have leaders and was crying out for them, adding that his party “isn’t wooing anyone, because people aren’t commodities.” When MPs join other parties, it’s not a problem, but when they join Bandić, something’s wrong or something’s fishy, he added.
He said Reformists MP Darinko Dumbović left his parliamentary group although he was in parliament thanks to him, and wished him luck.
Asked if his group’s MPs have to vote for every government decision, Bandić said that was not the rule because his was a democratic party and that, without his group, no government budget would have been adopted.
MP Mladen Mađer, who recently left the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) to join Bandić’s parliamentary group and party, said he did so because he was sure he would be able to achieve the goals for which he was in parliament, primarily the development of Koprivnica-Križevci County. He accused HSS president Krešo Beljak of running the party in a centralised way.
Mađer denied that Bandic had hired his two daughters, saying one works in the Zagreb city government and that she got the job after replying to an ad, while the other has been living in Osijek for eight years.
During the press conference, Bandić clashed with reporters several times after they posed questions to him, saying they were not letting him answer normally and that some were “cawing” like “crows in my playground.”
More news on the Zagreb mayor can be found in our Politics section.
