What are the next steps of two largest parties, MOST and the President
Don’t let the title fool you, I have no intention to jump on the “let’s trash MOST” media bandwagon. Croatia is not the only country where it takes weeks to form a Government after an election. True, it’s the first time we’ve been faced with such a tight election result here in Croatia, but we’re a young democracy, we’ll learn.
As we reported earlier today, National committee of MOST met in their Zagreb headquarters today to discuss the latest developments. And the meeting went on for 6 hours. There were no elaborate comments and explanations for the media afterwards, just few brief statements. No decision was made on whether they will support SDP or HDZ, only thing we do know is that MOST has the signature of 15 of its members while the rest of them have been given a deadline until Tuesday to decide whether they will support this platform or not. During the long meeting there was no discussion about Zoran Milanovic’s offer for Božo Petrov to take the Speaker’s position nor did they discuss the fact that two of their members Gordana Rusan and Irena Petrijevčanin Vuksanović left early.
“Key conclusions cannot be drawn before next week after both sides give us their written opinions on the reforms we’ve suggested. We spend most of our time today discussing those reforms because they are the most important part of this story” said one of the members of MOST National committee Ružica Vukovac. Should both SDP and HDZ send affirmative answers to reform requests, Vukovac added that they will meet again to decide whether they will support one party or still insist on a grand coalition or expert government.
And now, putting MOST aside, both SDP and HDZ are working hard on getting as many signatures as they can, so much so that at times the whole process is looking like a scene from the farmer’s market. Everyone is still trying to figure out why one of the minority representatives went against his own party and decided not to side with SDP, but it all comes down to the fact that neither SDP nor HDZ will be able to form a government without at least 6 MOST members, but that’s yesterday’s news.
President Kolinda Grabar Kitarović took her role very seriously even though some HDZ members were expecting her to give them the mandate to form the government since they were the relative winner of the election. But the constitution is very clear, unless they can prove they have the majority (76 signatures), they cannot get the mandate. So, what happens if no one comes to her with 76 signatures in the second round of official consultations which are scheduled for December 7th? Well, this is after the first parliament session, by that time Parliament will have to elect a Speaker, and if there’s still no clear indication on who is more likely to form a government and once again no one produces 76 signatures, President Grabar Kitarović will allow one more round of consultations around Christmas. After that we will either finally have the new government or we will have new elections. Simple, isn’t it?
