Even though the names of other candidates for the new president of HDZ have not been confirmed, Andrej Plenkovic, a favourite to win the party election, has gathered a pretty impressive team around him.
After all the political drama surrounding Tomislav Karamarko that ultimately lead to his resignation, the question on everyone’s lips now is who will be the next president of HDZ. On June 27,2016, Telegraf.hr reports on the growing support Andrej Plenkovic is receiving from other party members, even though just a few weeks back, some members didn’t think Plenkovic has a strong enough base to win the intra-party elections.
One of the first senior members to show his support for Plenkovic, apart from Vladimir Seks is Vladimir Culjak: “I personally support Andrej Plenkovic. I have no doubt that he is currently the best choice for HDZ president. I am convinced he will receive the support of the Vukovar Srijem County and the 5th electoral unit” Culjak commented for Jutarnji list.
There were some media reports that the most powerful man within the party at the moment, Milijan Brkic, could support Tomislav Tolusic as the next party president, and even Tomislav Karamarko reportedly showed his support for Tolusic by saying that the party does not need Brussels pencil pushers to run the party. to run it. Now it looks like Tolusic will not be running at all, and his base will be used to collect signatures for Plenkovic.
Everybody is still waiting to see whether Darko Milinovic, a gynecologist from Lika and the former minister of health will decide to run. He collected 1360 out of the necessary 5 000 votes to run in just one day, but since he used the old forms, he will have to collect them again from scratch: “I still have to put some things in their place, but if I do decide to run, I will beat Plenkovic in the first round”, Milinovic was pretty confident.
Ivana Maletić, another EMP from HDZ’s ranks, was also mentioned a few times as a possible party president candidate, but she says her decision will be made when the time is right, and in the meantime, she supports Plenkovic, her Brussels colleague. One possible candidate did raise an eyebrow or two and that is the name of the current technical minister of culture Zlatko Hasanbegovic who is supported by the far-right members. According to one of the portal’s close to HDZ, Hasanbegovic was planning on running with current technical foreign minister Miro Kovac as his deputy.
It seems Andrej Plenkovic is the only serious candidate, and now that we know Damir Krsticevic will be his campaign manager and Davor Ivo Stier as the spokesperson, we can see preparations are well underway for serious changes within one of Croatia’s largest political parties.
