After Goran Radman’s express dismissal, Siniša Kovačić was appointed new acting director of HRT
Yet another eventful day in Croatian politics. Even though the meeting of the Media committee was cancelled early on March 3, 2016, it started after 11 AM, and to no surprise, the decision was made to suggest the dismissal of the current director of the Croatian Radio Television, Goran Radman, to the Parliament. As it is the case with every government in Croatia, one of the first decisions was to change the director of our public broadcaster.
Just minutes after the decision was accepted by the Committee members, new acting director was suggested – Siniša Kovačić, a journalist who has been with Croatian Radio Television for 20 years and the president of the recently formed Association of Croatian Journalists and Publicists. Kovačević was suggested by Jasen Mesić, member of HDZ, and the decision was made final with 7 votes for his appointment while three members abstained from voting. Now both the dismissal and new appointment have to be confirmed by the Croatian Parliament.
Soon after the committee voted in favour of his dismissal, Goran Radman held a press conference in which he gave an overview of his work as the director of HRT: ” Over the last 3,5 years, I’ve made some bad choices when it comes to staffing, but I believe we significantly decreased the corruption and the leakage of money towards some interest groups and political parties” Radman said.
As far as Kovačić is concerned, Radman said that he will be the first one to congratulate him and to make sure he takes over the position as quickly and calmly as possible if the Parliament votes for his appointment. Radman also stated that after some allegations against him were publicly voiced over the last few days, and repeated again today during the commitee meeting, that it wouldn’t be the first time for him to sue someone for slander; “Both the motive and reasons for my dismissal are political”, Radman stated and added: “They are using many illegal processes. I will prove my innocence and show that I did my job responsibly, fairly and with full political objectivity”.
And as Radman prepares for a lawsuit, we can only say that he is not the first or the last director of our national broadcaster to be dismissed after the change in Government, in fact, he was appointed by the former Government not long after they took office.
