The party expects much better relations with Bernardić than with his predecessor Zoran Milanović.
Judging by the statements of the newly-elected SDP president Davor Bernardić, and also by the reactions of MOST leaders to his election, it can be expected that in the coming period there will be warming of relations between the two parties, reports Večernji List on November 30, 2016.
Bernardić’s message that SDP and MOST are two parties of opposing worldviews, but which can nevertheless “work together at the political level”, are completely different in comparison with prior statements from SDP that they would not help MOST pretend to be an opposition to its own government and that they would not support its proposals in Parliament, even if they actually agreed with them.
MOST now is openly expressing satisfaction with the election of Bernardić, and expect to have much more constructive cooperation with him than with his predecessor Zoran Milanović, whom they have never forgot his alleged attempt to come to a separate deal with just some of MOST’s member of Parliament during coalition negotiations after the 2015 parliamentary elections.
“We certainly expect good and constructive cooperation with Bernardić”, said a MOST source asked what they expected from Milanović’s successor. Although they have not yet had any contact with Bernardić after his election, they expect to have such contacts and say that they “welcome any kind of cooperation and constructive criticism”.
MOST says that earlier SDP’s decision to reject all of its proposals was “part of a corrupt political game”, and now expect Bernardić’s SDP to support their proposal to prevent the increase in salaries of high-ranking government officials due to the introduction of lower income taxes. If SDP really does support MOST’s proposal, it could very easily happen that MOST’s legislative amendments will be adopted with the support of the largest opposition party, which would leave HDZ as the only major party supporting the increase in politicians’ salaries.
Prior to parliamentary elections in 2015, MOST announced that one of its major goals was to eliminate from Croatian politics then leaders of the two largest political parties, HDZ president Tomislav Karamarko and SDP president Zoran Milanović. Karamarko resigned earlier this year and has since left politics. After losing his second parliamentary elections in ten months, Milanović announced that he would not run for another term as SDP president and would leave politics, at least temporarily.
While MOST, just like other Croatian political parties, is not known for fulfilling its pre-election promises given to voters, it seems that, at least in this case, it has managed to accomplish its goal in just a few months.
