ZAGREB, August 11, 2019 – Presidential candidate Zoran Milanović said during a visit to the southern town of Metković on Saturday that President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović’s possibly calling an extraordinary parliament session would set a precedent but that the president was the one to make a decision on the matter.
The Office of the President said in a statement on Friday that with regard to a request sent to her by the Bridge party to call an extraordinary session of the parliament to discuss a vote of no confidence in Health Minister Milan Kujundžić, she would make a decision on the request if the Constitutional Court ruled that conditions for such a move had been created.
“The President knows the Constitution well enough because she tendentiously violated it when she gave Tihomir Orešković the term to form the government, and now after five years she pretends not to know the Constitution; the Constitutional Court does not decide about such matters, it serves for other purposes,” the former Social Democrat prime minister said when asked to comment on the Opposition’s motion for a vote of no confidence in Health Minister Milan Kujundžić.
“The President should decide whether or not to take action. The Opposition’s actions are legitimate – it is trying to provoke the majority. I don’t know to what extent the president of the republic can become involved in political struggles… If a session of the parliament was called now, during the summer recess, it would set a precedent and we could expect the Opposition to request an extraordinary parliament session every summer in the coming years. It’s up to the president to decide,” said Milanović, who attended the Boat Marathon in Metković.
Asked if Kujundžić should leave, he declined to comment.
“I have said that I will not behave towards any government the way others behaved towards me (as PM) because I know how harmful it is for the country,” he said, noting that the president of the republic should be neutral but have political views and must not “scheme regarding the appointment or replacement of ministers or blackmail the government.”
“We are witnessing that now. My opinion of the incumbent government is not good but I wouldn’t do the things the president has been doing. What she has been doing is not decent,” Milanović said.
Asked if he could count with the support of the entire Social Democratic Party (SDP), considering senior SDP official Zlatko Komadina’s statement that his chances of winning the election in the second round were not very good, Milanović said that it was up to the SDP to decide how much his presidential candidacy was in its interest.
“But I am a candidate with the SDP’s support and I agree that I can win in the second round only with the support of Croatian voters,” he said.
More news about presidential elections can be found in the Politics section.
