According to media reports, there is still possibility that some MPs would like to prevent the dissolution of Parliament on 15 July.
Some of the MPs in the current Parliament and some ministers are quite sure that after the early parliamentary elections in September they will not be re-elected. Therefore, according to media reports, there are those who believe that it is still not too late for a coalition reshuffle to take place after all, reports Jutarnji List on July 9, 2016.
According to one member of the still ruling coalition, in the last few days there have been intense discussions about whether HDZ and MOST could still prevent the dissolution of Parliament. The idea was founded on the fact that in June MOST agreed to join the initiative for the dissolution of Parliament due to the behaviour of HDZ which was then led by Tomislav Karamarko, who brought down Prime Minister Tihomir Orešković and thus the whole government. Karamarko is now history, and Andrej Plenković will soon become HDZ president. At the time, he advocated the position that HDZ should not vote against Orešković.
The advocates of the urgent coalition reshuffle idea do not have a lot of time and any such deal should be made by the end of next week. There are people who believe that it is possible to reach an agreement between MOST and Plenković-led HDZ to find 76 MPs willing to support a new Prime Minister-designate. Even though Parliament did vote for its dissolution, the decision will take effect on 15 July, so it is theoretically possible that it could give its support to a new government. The only question is what would be achieved with such decision. For that government to last more than two months, Parliament would also have to withdraw its decision on dissolution. It is very doubtful whether Parliament could vote again on the same matter and annul a decision which has already been adopted and whose political consequences have already been felt.
However, both HDZ and MOST deny there are serious discussions about any such plans. “Things have gone too far. There is no possibility for any reshuffle. Something like that would be a political suicide for whomever would try to explain this type of manoeuvring to voters”, said one HDZ member.
Miroslav Šimić (MOST) confirmed that there were such ideas. “We have very clearly demonstrated that we do not care about positions in government, but we want to protect national interests”, said Šimić. “The only reshuffle we are interested in are the elections”, concluded Šimić.
