Voters Will Remove the Government in November

SDP President Zoran Milanovic criticised the government and Prime Minister Sanader at a press conference in Split.

-The government should bare political responsibility for criminal in a state institution, where four ministers are in the Managing Board- Milanovic said, continuing – Sanader, by taking credit for the operation`s success, is trying to convince us that he is conducting a struggle against corruption and the truth is that he was unaware of the operation- Milanovic was determined.

He added that, if Prime Minister Sanader and President Mesic knew about the campaign “Maestro,” they ought to explain where they had gotten the insight because, as he said, this was illegal.

He said that SDP was not opposed to the Croatian People’s Party’s (HNS) initiative asking for the government’s resignation because no one could reasonably be opposed to it, but he thinks that the government will be removed by the voters in November because, he added, we have been witnesses to a number of unsuccessful attempts to get a vote of no confidence at Parliament. 

The three and a half years that the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) has been in power were years of affairs and scandals and this cannot be fixed six months before the elections, with attempts to present the uncovering of corruption, in which HDZ staff was involved, as this government’s success, said Milanovic.  

In regard to Sanader’s statements saying that the opposition ought to fear the discovery of corruption at the Croatian Privatization Fund as well, Milanovic said that it remains to be seen who should be afraid, adding that SDP officials were not running away from political and penal accountability which, as he said, did not exist in this instance. 

When the Privatization Fund’s president Grga Ivezic says that he did not have an idea of what was going on there, this is the best indicator of the state of affairs at the Fund, because there were reasons for this even before the corruption was discovered, Milanovic said.

Former Slovenian Prime Minister Rop`s accusations of Sanader and Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa arranging the incidents in Savudrijska Vala is a bit unusual for Milanovic and says that they should wait for the investigation of the issue.

He also responded that he did not know that Stipe Gabric Jambo, as he said at the Croatian Television show “Nedjeljom u dva” (Sunday at two), had negotiated to join SDP.