Croatian Peasants' Party, a member of the ruling coalition, gets a new president.
At yesterday's' congress of the Croatian Peasants' Party, which is a member of the ruling Patriotic Coalition, Krešo Beljak was elected as the new party president, reports Jutarnji List on March 20, 2016.
In the second round of voting, Beljak received 398 votes, while his opponent Nenad Matić won 335 votes. Beljak, who is the Mayor of Samobor, said that he ran for party president because he was not satisfied with the work of the previous leadership led by Branko Hrg.
"We are members of the Patriotic Coalition and we will certainly remain members if HDZ, which is the biggest partner, continues behaving in a fair way towards us. That is the position of HSS as this moment. We have only one member of Parliament and I do not think we are in a position to made grand decisions about the fate of the coalition or the government. That is simply impossible", said Beljak. He added that he was running to become HSS president because he did not want to be a member of the party which does not deal with policies, but only with personnel issues and who will get which post.
Nenad Matić, his opponent and president of the HSS branch in Zagreb, said that HSS should return to where it all started. "We have to start from the Croatian villages and countryside. The key elements are the protection of consumer rights, environmental protection, small and medium-sized enterprises and the economy, as well as tourism and education", said Matić.
He noted that by 1 September their local branches must define their relations within the Patriotic Coalition and after that if they do not come to an agreement, they can choose other partners for the local elections scheduled for May 2017. "I have proved in Zagreb that we can win 12.5 percent of votes, without SDP or HDZ. I believe we can do it everywhere, but we need time", said Matić.
Both candidates said that the position of HSS in negotiations with HDZ was very weak and that former party president Branko Hrg made a mistake. "Instead of being a party with four to five MPs so that we can decide who will be in power, today, we have just one member of Parliament", said Matić. He pointed out that in 2000 HSS had 16 MPs, similar to MOST today, and had three ministers in the then coalition government with SDP.
