Tensions are rising before the decisive week for Croatian politics.
On late Saturday evening, MOST denied media reports that it had given a deadline to HDZ until Tuesday at noon to appoint a new First Deputy Prime Minister instead of HDZ president Tomislav Karamarko or it would sign SDP’s motion for dissolution of Parliament, reports Index.hr on June 12, 2016.
“MOST has not given any deadline to HDZ because we want to give the opportunity to the Prime Minister to defend his honour in Parliament and to respond in front of MPs to false accusations included in the motion of no confidence against him”, announced MOST on Facebook.
“We expect HDZ to withdraw the proposal to recall the Prime Minister and to nominate a new candidate for the First Deputy Prime Minister. If HDZ does bring down the Prime Minister and the government, then MOST will choose new elections as the only possible option”, added MOST in the statement. MOST also warned the public that in the next few days they could expect a series of false statements by “sources from MOST”, but that MOST would not actually have anything to do with those statements.
Slobodna Dalmacija daily reported on Saturday evening that, according to sources close to MOST leadership, MOST gave a deadline to HDZ by Tuesday noon to appoint Karamarko’s replacement or that MOST’s MPs would sign SDP’s motion for the Parliament to be dissolved and new parliamentary elections be called.
The report also claimed that MOST leadership was not afraid of new elections because they were convinced that voters would reward them for their attempt to improve the governance of Croatia, but wanted to first exhaust all political and legal possibilities so that citizens would not blame them for the early elections.
Also according to the report, MOST believes that HDZ’s decision to appoint Finance Minister Zdravko Marić as the Prime Minister-designate is just “a spin or a bluff”, aimed at calming the rebels in HDZ’s own ranks and attracting support of some of smaller parties’ MPs.
