ZAGREB, August 31, 2018 - The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) presidency on Thursday evening initiated disciplinary proceedings against presidency member Darko Milinović due to political damage he caused to the party by his behaviour, and Milinović, who is currently Lika-Senj County Prefect, said he would not support HDZ leader, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, in the event of his ouster from the party.
On Thursday afternoon, 29 members of the presidency of the ruling party participated in the vote, and 27 voted for the launch of the disciplinary proceedings, whereas one abstained and one member was against such move.
Earlier in the day, Plenković said that the party's presidency would launch disciplinary proceedings against Milinović, who is running for president of the party's Lika-Senj County branch, due to the gravest breaches of membership obligations and causing political damage to the party.
"We believe that with his performance yesterday, Darko Milinović has caused political damage to the HDZ and I, as the party's president, and other members of the inner presidency, will not allow the party to be, figuratively, turned into a circus or any mass demonstrations. We consider that to be very bad and unnecessary because all issues that were on the agenda he could have and should have resolved with the commission organising elections," Plenković told reporters after a meeting of the party's inner presidency.
"That is why we have decided that the HDZ presidency will launch disciplinary proceedings against Milinović for the gravest breach of membership obligations and causing political damage to the HDZ," he added.
Asked if Milinović could be ousted from the party, since Milinović was referring to the party statute, Plenković said he could and that it was up to the Court of Honour to decide.
Milinović told Hina later the rules on intra-party elections said disciplinary proceedings could not be instigated against a party member after elections were called. He voiced confidence that the HDZ, as a democratic party, would not prevent any candidate from running in elections.
HDZ secretary general Gordan Jandroković said the party's new statute enabled to oust a member and that the Court of Honour would interpret it correctly.
On Wednesday afternoon, Milinović and about 200 HDZ members from Lika-Senj County arrived in Zagreb in four buses to express their dissatisfaction with a delay in the local intra-party election. They occupied the HDZ main offices for some time in the evening. Milinović said then that he was confident that he would beat his rival Marijan Kustić. He dismissed Kustić's statement that local party elections had been postponed because party members had received threats from various sides, but noted that tensions did exist given that there were two candidates for the post.
On Thursday evening, Milinović told the Vecernji List daily that in the event that he was ousted from the HDZ, he would step down as the County Prefect to retake his seat in parliament and in that scenario he would not support Prime Minister Plenković.
