ZAGREB, August 7, 2019 – Independent presidential candidate Dejan Kovač, who is supported by the Croatian Social-Liberal Party (HSLS), on Wednesday officially announced his presidential candidacy, saying that the transparent spending of public money started at the top and that it was crucial for productivity and for the fight against corruption.
“Corruption can be eradicated only through transparency, digitisation and political responsibility. Those elements, especially political responsibility, have not existed in recent years. How can we expect citizens to behave better if we do not set an example with our own actions,” Kovač, an economist by profession, told a news conference.
He said that in the past five years he had been studying corruption in Croatia and that his research showed that 90% of citizens believed corruption at all levels of government was the country’s main problem.
Kovac said that attempts to restore transparency and citizens’ trust in state institutions, which had not been functioning properly for the past 30 years, was what had brought him and the HSLS mayor of Bjelovar, Dario Hrebak, together.
He said that during his term as president he would promote what Hrebak had introduced in Bjelovar – a project enabling citizens to see how money from the town budget was spent.
“They will tell you that there is no money for that. Yet there is money for a (publicly financed) concert by (singer Marko Perković) Thompson, worth half a million kuna. The cost of a single concert by Thompson equals the cost of three transparency applications for three towns that last forever,” he said.
Kovač also said that as president, he would make the finances of the president’s office more transparent and that he advocated a change of the diplomatic network to make it become the backbone of an export-oriented economy, with ambassadors receiving their salaries in two parts, one of which would be fixed while the other would vary depending on their performance.
HSLS deputy leader Hrebak said that Croatia needed people like Kovač, new people and people with results, expressing confidence that his and Kovac’s plans were possible to implement.
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