ZAGREB, July 14, 2018 – Four senior officials of Croatia’s Social Democratic Party (SDP) have been suspended from their duties in the strongest opposition party, SDP leader Davor Bernardić told the press late on Saturday after a 12-hour meeting of the party’s main committee.
Over the next two years, party vice president Peđa Grbin and presidency members Siniša Hajdaš-Dončić, Mihael Zmajlović and Vedran Babić will not be allowed to hold any office in the party and exercise their membership rights.
They are dissatisfied with how Bernardić is leading the party and were suspended at his proposal. The disciplinary measure was carried by a vote of 56 to four, with one abstention.
“If I am the only problem of the SDP, I am ready to resign as a member of Parliament, but I expect the same from those seeking my resignation. I think that is fair and just, and if it happens, I will certainly do it. We will protect the SDP and that’s most important,” Bernardić said.
Responding to a reporter’s remark that he was not asked to resign as an MP but as the SDP leader, Bernardić said that if his opponents had “a minimum of decency” they would do what they require of him and resign as MPs. “If the 23 deputies who have demanded my resignation step down as members of Parliament, I am also willing to go, if I am the only problem.”
The 23 MPs are among 90 discontented SDP members who have signed a letter demanding Bernardić’s resignation.
Asked if what he said was demagoguery and cheap populism, Bernardić said that this was accountability to the party. “To show that we protect the SDP and not our positions,” he added.
The four “rebels” did not stay for the vote, and Grbin told reporters that during the debate they had tried to find out what exactly they were being accused of, how they had violated the party’s statute or programme and why they should be suspended. “Not only did we not find that out, but we were not even told on the basis of which statutory provisions disciplinary action would be taken against us,” Grbin said, adding that they did not want to be part of “that travesty”.
Out of solidarity with their suspended colleagues, Biljana Borzan, Bojan Glavašević, Željko Kolar, Vojko Obersnel, Ranko Ostojić and Nenad Stazić requested that they be suspended as well.
