The mayoral candidates commented on Beroš at separate news conferences held on Saturday, at which they spoke about their platforms for the 16 May local election.
Tomislav Tomašević, the mayoral candidate of the Zagreb is Ours/We Can! platform, said that Beroš’s position had been shaken.
“He serves, in a way, as the prime minister’s lighting rod for criticism, and he will be sacrificed when necessary. The problem with drug wholesalers is not just the minister’s problem, it is a problem for the entire government and it is not being dealt with systematically, as confirmed by the finance minister,” Tomašević said in a comment on Beroš’s address at a session of the parliamentary health committee.
The Social Democratic candidate for Zagreb mayor, Joško Klisović, said that a minister who could not explain why he had paid HRK 4 million for a website that did not function should be replaced right away and that any responsible prime minister would have done it already.
The candidate of the Homeland Movement for Zagreb mayor, Miroslav Škoro, said that the health system needed a reform but that people “whose hands are tied” cannot carry out reforms.
“He asked for it, I think that he should be more resolute. We cannot go on without serious reforms. Serious reforms cannot be implemented by people whose hands are tied and his hands are tied by a coalition that is based on political trade-offs,” Škoro said.
Mirando Mrsić, leader of the nonparliamentary Democrats party and former health minister, who will run in the May election as a candidate for deputy to Zagreb mayoral candidate Anka Mrak Taritaš (GLAS), called on Beroš to resign, saying that the cijepise.zdravlje.hr platform for vaccination registration was an “an amateur and non-functioning platform” for “pandemic profiteering”.
“A couple of days ago Minister Beroš said that prices of health services would go up to patch holes in the health system and now we see that he is giving taxpayers’ money to firms owned by his acquaintances,” said Mrsić.
