Another day, another political drama in Croatia.
If Milijan Brkić is not confirmed as the new veterans’ affairs minister, Croatia will have new parliamentary elections. According to the latest reports in Croatian media, that is the ultimatum which HDZ gave to MOST this week. The goal is clear: to name the HDZ secretary general as the new veterans’ affairs minister despite the scandal with alleged plagiarism of his final university thesis, reports Jutarnji List on February 27, 2016.
The Brkić case was reportedly the topic of the lengthy meeting between MOST’s members of Parliament and ministers on Thursday evening which lasted until midnight. Many members of MOST are aware that Brkić’s position cannot be defended in the long run since it is only a matter of time before the Expert Council of the Police Academy restarts the proceedings against him and again annuls his university diploma due to plagiarism. They are also aware that a vote in favour of Brkić could mean a definitive end to the ideals with which Božo Petrov and his colleagues decided to go into politics and supposedly change the established pattern of behaviour of Croatian politicians, which enabled MOST to become the third strongest party in the country.
However, faced with a significant decline in their popularity – latest polls show them with just 10 percent of support – no one in the party would like to risk new elections, since they might bring an early end to their political careers. Miro Bulj, one of MOST’s MPs, this week indirectly supported Brkić, noting that he has the most important diploma for veterans, “the diploma of the Homeland War”. However, it seems that at least for now that is his personal opinion, since on Thursday the party failed to make any decision what to do with Brkić.
“This week, the priority for MOST and the government was drafting the budget. We are going to make a decision about veterans’ minister next week. Everyone knows how it goes: we choose among several candidates. When we know who all the candidates are, then MOST will have its opinion about them, and the final decision will eventually be made by the Prime Minister”, said on Friday Miroslav Šimić, one of MOST’s MPs.
It is becoming more and more likely that MOST will leave the decision to Prime Minister Tihomir Orešković. If he opposes Brkić, it can be expected that MOST will give its support to the PM and publicly defy HDZ. However, it the prime minister accepts HDZ’s proposal and submits Brkić as the official candidate to Parliament, then MOST would be facing a very difficult choice: they would either deceive their voters and vote for Brkić, or would reject the HDZ candidate and go to the polls, with all the risks that decision might bring.
