ZAGREB, May 27, 2020 – The Social Democratic Party (SDP) Restart coalition on Wednesday presented its election platform “Agenda for a Start’ for the 5 July parliamentary election with SDP leader Davor Bernardic saying that they are the only true force for a change and a restart.
“It’s time for a new policy, a policy of courage, sincerity, and trust. An election awaits us. The choice does not seem to be that difficult. Order or chaos. Honesty or corruption. Justice and equality before the law or protection for the privileged,” said Bernardic accompanied by his coalition partners – Silvano Hrelja, leader of the Croatian Peasants’ Party (HSU), Anka Mrak Taritas of the Glas party, Goran Aleksic of the Snaga party and leader of the Croatian Peasants’ Party (HSS) leader Kreso Beljak.
He announced that the Restart coalition government would make decisions on key issues in its first week in power that should have been resolved prior to the election.
“We will extend job keeping measures through a law on shorter working hours. We will adopt a law on a one-year moratorium on loan repayments, a decision on providing loans by financial institutions for small and medium-sized enterprises and a set of measures for the socially most vulnerable citizens who count for more than a million and we will send the bill on Zagreb’s post-quake reconstruction on the fast track to parliament,” Bernardic said while listing the first steps if they won the election.
He said that in the past five years not one serious reform has been conducted in the country.
The attempted pension reform failed. The education reform does not exist and we will remember the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) term in government for a wave of strikes and resistance by the entire education community, said Bernardic.
Taking stock of the current government’s term, Bernardic said that today, Croatia had more than a million people living on the verge of poverty, half of them being pensioners. The health system is burdened with scandals and amassed debts of HRK 9.1 billion.
Our objective, he said, is to increase pension allowances by introducing guaranteed pension allowances of 70% of the average wage, increase the minimum wage to HRK 4,000, and increasing the level non-taxable income to HRK 5,000 which will immediately lead to a wage increase for more than 700,000 workers, he said.
