Stjepan Mesić believes that the government wants to silence him.
Former Croatian President Stjepan Mesić will probably lose his office and official car with a driver. The first step in this direction was taken yesterday by MPs from the ruling majority who supported the government’s proposal that the Office of the Former President Stjepan Mesić should receive half a million kuna less than originally proposed. The former President will have at his disposal only 277,819 kuna for this year, reports Večernji List on March 22, 2016.
Cynics could say that the former president should not be completely dissatisfied, since MOST originally proposed that the budget allocation should be reduced by as much as 600,000 kuna.
It seems that the final “euthanasia” of Mesić’s office is planned for 1 May, when a new Law on Special Rights of Former Presidents should come into effect. The draft law has already been written in the Ministry of Administrative Affairs, but the government has not yet made a political decision. Administrative Affairs Minister Dubravka Jurlina-Alibegović yesterday refused to comment on the draft law, which would mean that Mesić would lose his right to a government car and a driver, and his office would no longer be financed from the state budget. He would continue to have a right for his security to be paid from the budget. Such law would save around 600,000 kuna per year.
“Everyone should be clear that this is not about the Office of the Former President. This is about me. I have never spent millions and no millions will be saved after my office is closed. My office spent about 800,000 kuna a year. However, whatever they do, regardless of whether they are the HDZ leadership, which is undoubtedly behind it, or whether they are someone’s agents like MOST or members of the Party of Rights, they will not close my mouth”, said Mesić.
HDZ did not want to comment whether Mesić’s office would be abolished, why they left to Mesić 100,000 kuna more than MOST proposed, and whether it was true that HDZ president Karamarko advocated that MOST’s amendment should not be accepted without first changing the relevant law.
