After days of media silence, SDP president speaks with reporters.
SDP president Zoran Milanović met on Tuesday in Žminj with members of the SDP branch in Istria. After the meeting, he addressed the media, reports N1 on July 26, 2016.
“I have not talked with reporters for five days and I can already see stories that I am hiding from someone, and I thought that people were bored with me”, said the SDP president. Milanović added that the election campaign would not be personalized and that it was necessary to prevent HDZ and MOST from tormenting the country.
“Plenković’s rating in July is the same as Karamarko’s ranking in May”, said Milanović commenting on the latest polls. “I just want a debate with him, and whichever television station offers to organize it, I will be there. I have been waiting for nine years”, said Milanović.
Talking about the scandal with the Croatian Forests public company, Milanović said, “A contract is a contract and it is a huge improvement over the golden parachutes which they had earlier. You count not fire those people without having to pay millions”, he said. “SDP and Jakovina did not gain anything from this. The Board of Directors of Croatian Forests was not a problem from HDZ and MOST, and I believe that the reason were their business results. HDZ and MOST did not dismiss them, and that is interesting”, he said.
Discussing the issue of money spent in government-owned villas while he was the Prime Minister, Milanović said everything was clear. “Not a kuna was spent on my family while we were at the Costabella Villa or on the island of Hvar. I was very careful about that.” He said that he used to go there for several days to rest with his family. “The current Prime Minister has enough money for a vacation, but I do not. When you go on vacation with relatives, security costs even more”, he said.
He also discussed the “Madison affair”. “The State Attorney’s Office dismissed the criminal complaint, so I can only shrug. If they only accused me of some serious crime, but they could not even invent that”, he said.
Taking about the forthcoming elections, he said that HDZ changed its strategy in the last month. “I think they know they will not win and they want to have more seats in Parliament for themselves, because they do not want to lose seats to parties such as these extremist little parties around which everything revolved in the last few months”, said Milanović commenting on the HDZ’s decision to go to the polls without national coalition partners.
“I have been through everything – Sanader, more moderate Kosor, and Karamarko. The People’s Coalition will win these elections”, he said. Milanović wondered why MOST so often discussed SDP, since SDP did not talk about MOST. He added that it should be clear to voters that a vote for MOST was a vote for HDZ.
