Parties within parties, as the Croatian political pantomime continues.
Former member of MOST Drago Prgomet founded a new political party yesterday. After the founding meeting ended, Prgomet made a short statement to the press and then left. Prgomet said that his new party HRID will continue to operate within the MOST political platform. Two additional MOST members of parliament, Gordana Rusak and Irena Petrijevčanin Vuksanović, were also present at the meeting, reports Vecernji List, Jutarnji List and Index.hr on November 24, 2015.
Later in the evening, Prgomet gave an interview in which we reiterated that HRID will continue to be part of MOST. “HRID can be the pillar of MOST in Zagreb. We will continue to operate within the MOST political platform. People do not realize that MOST is not a party, but a political platform of four political parties”, Prgomet said. “The three of us are not running away, we want to remain a part of MOST. It is clear that the idea of a grand coalition has collapsed and that MOST simply has to decide with whom it will negotiate”, Prgomet said and added that the Government is a political body and that reforms have to be carried out by politicians. “New elections would be the worst solution. There are a lot of things going on which could destabilize Croatia and MOST has to be aware that voters could blame it for lengthy negotiations and possible new elections”, Prgomet concluded.
Prgomet’s decision means that the situation for HDZ president Tomislav Karamarko is now more complicated than ever. After Prgomet and two additional members of parliament from MOST founded the new party, MOST no longer has enough votes in the Parliament to give Karamarko a majority.
HDZ and its coalition partners have 59 seats, MOST has 16 seats, which brings their potential coalition up to 75 seats, while the majority is 76. To make matters worse for Karamarko, Stipe Petrina, also a member of parliament from MOST, has said that he would never cooperate with HDZ. There are also rumours that at least two more members of MOST could soon leave that party as well. Petrina said yesterday that “things are quite clear: 75 percent of MOST would rather go with SDP’s coalition, but MOST leader Božo Petrov cannot do that, and therefore there is no decision. He keeps saying that SDP and Zoran Milanović are attacking him in the media, but no one can see that. If Božo Petrov was not a political project conceived by someone else, we would already know with whom we would go into a coalition.”
HDZ has already begun looking for some of the representatives of minorities that could be persuaded to switch over to its side. However, taking into account their prior statements and the fact that part of HDZ’s coalition is a party which wants to take away the rights of minorities, it is hard to believe that the negotiations with the representatives of minorities will be successful. Of the eight minority representatives, three represent the Serbian national minority and support SDP, two are members of SDP’s coalition partner HNS, while the representative of the Hungarian national minority Šandor Juhas is close to SDP.
Karamarko could also look for partners in some of the smaller parties. Milan Bandić has two deputies and has not explicitly said whom he will support, while Radimir Čačić has already announced his support for SDP, also he could switch sides. There are also two deputies from HDSSB who refuse to even talk with Karamarko, three deputies from IDS who are with SDP and one member of parliament from Živi Zid who he has already announced that he will not support anyone.
