The political circus continues in Zagreb.
HDZ are seriously considering the offer made by MOST to return to the negotiation process about forming a new government, but no decision has yet been made. The issue will be discussed at the party presidency meeting at noon today, which will be followed by consultations with partners from their Patriotic Coalition, reports Novilist on December 20, 2015.
The party leadership has to decide whether to support Saturday’s move when party president Tomislav Karamarko left the tripartite negotiations without signing a document which was offered by MOST president Božo Petrov. In that case, they believe HDZ would appear strong and would receive more support from voters at the next elections, which they believe could happen quite soon. The party has received a lot of phone calls, e-mails and text messages from citizens who support the leadership and do not want them to return to negotiations. This option is strongly supported by HDZ secretary general Milijan Brkić and political secretary Tomislav Čuljak. They feel that the voters will appreciate the fact that HDZ was principled and did not want to enter a partnership with SDP’s Croatia is Growing coalition, which they have been strongly criticizing for the past four years.
However, not everybody agrees. Some high-ranking members share the opinion that HDZ’s decision to accept the proposals made by MOST would be badly received by the public and the party membership. But, they fear that there is a good possibility that Croatia Is Growing and MOST will form a stable government, which could last for several months, and maybe even several years. They believe that SDP could in that case count on support of over 80 MPs, which would mean that they could manipulate with some of MOST’s MPs who are inclined to support SDP anyway.
“In that case, the government could last for years. It is true that voters support the fact that we left the negotiations on Saturday, but if MOST and SDP were to stay in power for more than six months, no one would remember that”, a high ranking member of the party leadership said. He believes that HDZ should find a way for the party to return to the negotiations by putting pressure on MOST to further loosen some of the conditions.
“Who remembers now that Milanović returned to the game after he insulted both HDZ and MOST. It is obvious that Milanović is being told by his advisers to say ‘yes’ to all MOST’s proposals”, believe some in HDZ. They think they could explain to voters that they do not want to leave the country in hands of former communists, and then start stalling the negotiation process in order to force President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović to call new elections, which they believe would bring them much better results than those which took place on 8 November.
