Think we are done with the political pantomime?
Although it seemed that, with yesterday’s announcement of Tihomir Orešković as the new Prime Minister-Designate, the post-electoral drama in Croatia was over, Croatia Is Growing coalition still has enough will to keep fighting, which was confirmed yesterday in their statements by SDP president Zoran Milanović and HNS president Vesna Pusić. Their final chance is the constitutive session of the new Parliament next week – provided that minority representatives and Reformists do not cross over to HDZ and MOST by then, reports Novilist on December 24, 2015.
At least as things stand now, SDP plans to propose its own candidate for the position of Speaker of the Parliament. Since there would be two candidates, according to the Parliamentary Rules that would mean that the voting would probably be done by a secret ballot and that there is still a chance that part of MOST could change its mind and cross over to the left coalition. Of course, at this moment it does not seem very likely that something like that could happen, but Pusić said that they had still not given up.
“To begin with, we will certainly propose our own candidate for Speaker of the Parliament. My opinion is that the best candidate would be current Speaker Josip Leko”, said Pusić. She openly said they are still counting on some of MPs from MOST. “These people have to decide according to their conscience. I think that in these conditions it might be best to have new elections. But, in the end, everybody should decide according to his or her conscience”, she said.
Croatia Is Growing coalition is understandably outraged and disappointed by the outcome, since they believe that HDZ took power from their hands thanks to underground political games. SDP claims that this represents complete destruction of political process and the victory for political trading, and some of them are asking why their member and former Vukovar Mayor Željko Sabo is in prison for political trading, when the new government has been formed in exactly the same way.
“This kind of politics is same as Sanader’s, half above the table, half under the table. We were negotiating, offering solutions and arguing, but unfortunately we have found ourselves in an unprecedented situation. One can only hope that people will see it, and that they will know who is honest and who is not”, SDP sources say.
They wonder how will people from MOST like Ines Strenja Linić or Josip Katalinić return to “red” Rijeka. “How will they justify to the citizens of Rijeka that they supported HDZ”, said one SDP member. SDP is sure that, if there is some new twist and new elections are called, they would achieve better results: “Our conscience is clean”, they say.
However, at the same time, there are more of those within SDP who have already started to criticize Milanović, believing that he made serious tactical errors. “Milanović should have openly asked MOST whether they will form a government with us or not. If they were to give a negative response, everything would be clear: they could go with HDZ. Instead, Milanović has repeatedly given them everything they wanted. Is that how a SDP president should behave?” said one of SDP leaders from Rijeka, convinced that the idea with a secret ballot for electing Speaker of the Parliament will probably fail. “If it turns out that HDZ and MOST have a solid majority and necessary number of signatures, how could we propose Leko and do that to him. It does not make any sense”, some of SDP members from Rijeka say.
