ZAGREB, October 12, 2019 – Vukovar mayor Ivan Penava is considering running for president of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party as a way to see to it that war criminals are finally punished.
“This is the first time that I’m talking about running in intra-party elections. The anniversary is approaching and I had to decide what the smartest thing to do was from the aspect of resolving the fate of the victims. When I decided that protest rallies are counterproductive and that it’s no good to wait for a year with no results, I had to think of the best course of action,” Penava says in Saturday’s issue of the Večernji List daily.
Penava is considering running for HDZ president as the only way to put the focus on and resolve the problem of unpunished Homeland War crimes given that, he says, state institutions have done nothing about that in the year since the big rally held in Vukovar to protest against the slow prosecution of war crimes.
After Davor Ivo Stier, Miro Kovač and likely Tomislav Karamarko, Penava could be the fourth counter-candidate to incumbent HDZ president Andrej Plenković in intra-party elections next spring, Večernji List said.
Prime Minister and HDZ president Andrej Plenković said on Saturday he had not noticed that Vukovar mayor Ivan Penava had decided to leave the party, and commented on Penava’s statement that he is considering to run for HDZ president by saying that “it’s good to have an ambition.”
Asked by the press in Osijek if the dissatisfaction in the ruling party was indeed so big, given that Penava might be the fourth candidate for the party president’s position, and if he considered himself partly responsible, Plenković said he was “certainly responsible for the fact that, when I took it over, the HDZ was 19 million kuna in the red and now it’s considerably in the black and financially consolidated.”
“I’m responsible for the fact that the HDZ won the parliamentary and local elections, the European elections as well, although we didn’t win the planned five but four seats. The economy is growing, the investment rating, European funds, the international reputation… I feel very responsible for this status of Croatia, the government and the HDZ.”
More HDZ news can be found in the Politics section.
