As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, upon answering journalists’ questions about the election results, PM Andrej Plenkovic (HDZ) said that he hadn’t yet called Tomislav Tomasevic in person and congratulated him on his win and new title as the Mayor of Zagreb, but that he does intend to and will.
When he was asked how it is that everyone says they are winning, he simply said: “Count!”
“The numbers are always the best indicators. HDZ has 45 percent of cities and municipalities, 75 percent of the counties. HDZ has never won 15 counties before. I see that people Mozemo! paraphrased my message from back in 2016 when I said: “We’re changing the HDZ to change Croatia.” They’re changing Zagreb to change Croatia. Obviously, they have something against the Croatia in which we managed to prevent social fragmentation, preserve 700,000 jobs, save 120,000 employers, pay 2.9 billion kuna within Zagreb alone for the salaries of 215,000 workers in the capital… I guess that’s a message for change that needs to be done at the level of Croatia. I still have to listen carefully to precisely what changes they’re calling for,” said PM Andrej Plenkovic.
When asked what kind of cooperation he expects with Zagreb’s new mayor Tomislav Tomasevic, he said that he has good cooperation with all leaders of local government units.
In a recent speech, he emphasised that the HDZ failed to win in only three out of six big cities. When asked by journalists whether or not the four largest Croatian cities are always the measure, Plenkovic pointed out the example of Velika Gorica near Zagreb, which, as he says, is growing, is now very large and that there is no big difference in population when compared to the likes of Osijek and Zadar as well.
“I’m delighted with the HDZ victory in Bjelovar-Bilogora County in the form of a young man of 36 years of age, who is one of those people of the new generation of HDZ. There, HDZ has returned to power after 20 years. It’s the same situation in Varazdin County. For the first time in 20 years, Komadina had to go to the second round with Cappelli, where he won, although itsn’t the sort of victory like he had before.
Of the 15 prefects we have, eight of them are “old” and seven are new. Of those seven, two are women and that’s just as important. The only women prefects are from HDZ – Antonija Jozic and Martina Furek Hajdin. The third candidate for mayor, Irena Hrstic, achieved the best HDZ result ever in Istria County, above 18 percent,” he pointed out, emphasising that they also returned to power in Lika-Senj County.
He also accused RTL and Nova TV of deliberately mispronouncing the name of HDZ’s candidate for mayor of Zagreb, Davor Filipovic, saying: “You should make a poster about what ideological television is like,” to an N1 television reporter.
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