Another day in Croatian political crisis.
SDP president Zoran Milanović said on Friday that his party would gather enough signatures for the dissolution of Parliament, if they are joined by MOST, reports Index.hr and Večernji List on June 10, 2016.
“This is the moment of truth. Croatian people are not laboratory mice. Seventy percent of citizens demand new elections and we think that their will has to be respected”, said Milanović in Parliament. He stressed that SDP would “have enough signatures and more than enough, so that it will be up to MOST’s MPs to decide whether they will do what is necessary or they will allow HDZ to try to persuade their individual MPs. It is up to them, it is a question of their conscience, responsibility, faith in their own strength at the new elections.”
SDP believes that it will gather more than 64 signatures for the dissolution of Parliament. “If MOST joins us, we will have over 76 MPs for elections to be held as soon as possible. And what is wrong with that?” said Milanović. Asked about HDZ’s claims that it already had a new parliamentary majority, Milanović said he wanted to see that majority.
In the meantime, three MPs from MOST – Ivan Lovrinović, Ivica Mišić and Juro Martinović – said on Friday that they were no longer part of MOST. They founded a new parliamentary group of independent MPs. Speaking about the reasons for leaving MOST, Lovrinović said that MOST had deviated from the economic programme for which it received 300,000 votes. He also said that MOST was being led by someone from outside of MOST, and not by party president Božo Petrov.
HDZ veteran Vladimir Šeks said on Friday that HDZ should withdraw from parliamentary procedure the motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Tihomir Orešković and to continue to govern together with MOST. If the Prime Minister is recalled and if new parliamentary majority is not formed, that the elections would take place. “HDZ and MOST want to avoid elections, because they cannot expect to achieve a good election result. SDP is wisely watching the events from the sidelines, watching the developments and waiting”, said Šeks. If the reshuffle fails and new majority is not formed, Šeks said the party should find new leader.
Irena Petrijevčanin Vuksanović (HRID) said on Friday that its two MPs did not intend to participate in a reshuffle of the parliamentary majority. “The current political chaos was caused by irresponsibility of HDZ and MOST leaderships, so they should solve their internal problems first”, said Vuksanović Petrijevčanin. Asked if this was an official position of the party, she said that this was her personal attitude, but that she was quite certain that the same opinion would be confirmed on Monday by the party Presidency.
