ZAGREB, May 14, 2018 - The Hotmail scandal involving Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Martina Dalić continued on Monday with the publication of new correspondence between her and the consultants and lawyers who had worked on Lex Agrokor, prompting the opposition to demand an early election.
The emails were again published by the Index.hr news website, which says the so-called Borg Group mailing list included Prime Minister Andrej Plenković's advisor Dubravka Vlašić Pleše and Justice Ministry state secretary Sanja Mišević.
Index.hr says members of the Borg Group were sending Vlašić Pleše drafts of the law on emergency administration in systemic companies, dubbed Lex Agrokor after the ailing Agrokor conglomerate, in the days before the government endorsed it.
The website says that Finance Minister Zdravko Marić knew about the authors of the law and that he too participated in the email correspondence at the start of the Agrokor crisis, although rarely.
"Let's have an election. The HDZ can't do without crime. Plenković knew about the emails, which means he lied to citizens when he said he didn't know," Bojan Glavašević of the Social Democratic Party tweeted, referring to the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party.
"Plenković, it is over!!! Step down and let us have a new election!!! And you should hire a good lawyer, actually a whole team of good lawyers, urgently!" Krešimir Beljak of the Croatian Peasant Party wrote on Facebook.
"This just confirms that Martina Dalić's immediate resignation is unavoidable. The question is if she's the only one," MOST leader Božo Petrov told Hina. Statements that Plenković's and Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković's will read the emails only now are unacceptable, he said. "The essence is that the credibility of the emails hasn't been disputed and it was said that the emails contain nothing new or contentious."
Petrov said that MOST, which was part of the government when Lex Agrokor was adopted, left the government because it did not agree with the argument that the end justified the means, which he said the Borg Group had evidently used for personal gain. "It is clear from the correspondence that they couldn't do that without a political blessing."
