ZAGREB, March 17, 2019 – Social Democratic Party (SDP) president Davor Bernardic on Saturday commented on MP Siniša Varga’s leaving the party, saying he appreciated people who did not give up, who fought and did not leave the SDP when it got tough.
Varga left the party on Friday, citing the inclusion of Mirela Holy, a former member of the SDP, on the party’s slate for May’s European Parliament election, and the fiasco at last Sunday’s local election in Lika-Senj County as the reasons. He said he would continue as an independent MP.
Responding to questions from the press in Osijek, Bernardić said Varga could thank the SDP for his professional successes, notably in politics, and that he should give his seat in parliament back to the party that had made it possible for him to become an MP.
Bernardić said the SDP’s goal was to win three seats in the EP, one more than now, and that he was sure the party would do well in the election.
Asked about the party’s poor results at last weekend’s local elections in Lika, he said local SDP leaders were responsible.
Asked if a joint commemoration for the victims of the Jasenovac WWII concentration camp was possible this year, Bernardić said he would like “one procession” and that a “joint commemoration is a necessity,” but added that the government had missed the chance by “de facto legalising the occasional use of the Ustasha salute ‘For the homeland ready’.”
He said members of the ethnic minorities that had the most victims in WWII at the hands of the Ustasha, such as the Roma and the Jews, could not walk together with ruling HDZ party members Stevo Culej, Josip Đakić and Milijan Brkić or HDSSB member Branimir Glavaš.
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