Mayor Holds First Press Conference After a Month - Current Events - Croatia

Bandic said the city board will work more transparently without the city government. He called a press conference anent a government meeting

ZAGREB, CROATIA - One month has passed since Milan Bandic was chosen to be mayor for the fourth time, with a convincing win over Josip Kregar. He called a press conference to inform the public of the decisions he has made, which the city government members should accept tomorrow.

Even though his associates announced that he could hold press conferences once a week, like city government meetings and conferences were held, Bandic did not inform the public of any decisions during the first month of his mandate, despite announcing competitions for five heads of departments and a city physical planning announcement.

The law on local (regional) self governance was portrayed as reducing the powers of the heads of cities, municipalities and counties, including the mayor of Zagreb, and increasing the powers of the representative bodies. However, according to the secretary of the Zagreb city government, after the statue of the City of Zagreb is synchronised with the law, the ratio of power between Milan Bandic and the city government will be 80:20, with the most power being in the mayor’s hands.

It still remains to be seen if the city management will work more transparently than up until now, as the mayor said himself, and the question is how the mayor will function with the city government.

Mayor Bandic gained more votes for mayor than his party did for city government, whose list bearer was Zoran Milanovic. The internal party in SDP (Social Democratic Party) when the top two men in SDP could not decide who would be president of the city parliament. Bandic insisted on his most faithful coalition partner up until now, Tatjana Holjevac, whilst Milanovic preferred Cacic’s HNS (Croatian People’s Party). Milanovic insisted on Boris Sprem, whilst Bandic had already promised the position to Tatjana Holjevac. In the end Tatjana Holjevac became professional vice-president of the coalition, and Sprem was named president.

However, this was not Milanovic’s only condition. Allegedly he gave Bandic an ultimatum for the function of president of Zagreb holding, where he named Ivo Covic for director last year.