ZAGREB, February 10, 2019 - The newly-formed Start party will offer the citizens of Croatia "new faces and new hope" by promoting different values than those advocated by the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), the president and the prime minister, its leader Dalija Orešković has told Hina in an interview.
Orešković, former chair of the parliamentary Conflict of Interest Commission who has been portrayed by the media as a new star on the Croatian political scene, says that the support she has received from 4.6% of the electorate in opinion polls this month gives her additional motivation. She rejected the possibility of entering into a pre-election coalition with the Amsterdam Coalition and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and said that she saw the space for dialogue among new forces such as the newly-formed political platform We Can! and the Pametno party.
Commenting on the voter support, Orešković said the public needed a party that would advocate a different approach to politics and promote different values. "This surprisingly high result at our very start only provides additional motivation and is an obligation for me to fulfil all the things that I have hinted at even before the party was formed."
Asked about the prospects of her leftist-liberal party in the first next elections in the Lika region, where it would stand against the HDZ which has been in power there since the 1990s, Orešković said: "This is not about whether Start can win or not. It is essential that we go to Lika and explain to people there that they have a choice that is different from what they are used to." She said that the HDZ was using local resources only for the sake of staying in power and that her party's aim is to encourage and bring together all independent forces to vote down the budget and bring down first the county prefect Darko Milinović and then the HDZ itself.
Asked if it was wise for a new party to risk a total fiasco by taking on the most powerful rightwing stronghold in the country, Orešković said: "It is important for us to open an alternative way and sooner or later it will produce a result. It doesn't necessarily have to be now. The key issues that we will raise in the context of the European elections can best be explained in the case of Lika. I specifically mean the absorption of EU funding for agriculture and the fact that these grants are allocated without a proper control system. The allocation of agricultural grants is possibly one of the most corruption-ridden areas of governance in Croatia."
Responding to the interviewer's remark that Start does not have recognisable people with political experience, Orešković said that their aim is to "open the door to new forces and people who are not stigmatised by their past, people who can vouch with their results, professional engagement and integrity that they will represent indeed something new on the political scene."
Asked what part of the electorate she was counting on and whether among them were voters of the left disillusioned with the present leadership of the SDP, Orešković said she primarily counted on those aware of the damage being done by "the HDZ and this corrupt clientelistic model, to which some other political models may have also resorted to a lesser extent."
"I count on those who see that the standard of living of our people is considerably lower than the EU average, that the healthcare system is on the verge of collapse, that a meaningful education reform does not exist even on paper, that the pension system is questionable, that the existing territorial organisation is threatening sound public financial management. The fact that 100,000 citizens left Croatia last year shows that government is not functioning. There's also the state of the judiciary, freedom of the media, the corruption perception index and indicators of the ease of doing business. Anyone who feels even a grain of rebellion and resistance in them and wants politics to become an area of competition between good ideas, they are all my potential voters who I count on," Oreskovic said.
Asked whether she would challenge Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović's run for a second term as president, Orešković said that her priority was to present her party and its platform to the public, establish party infrastructure and connect people who would be involved in the detailed elaboration of party policies. "The European elections will be the first serious test that will show how successful we are and whether voters have recognised us as being different from other political parties."
When pressed to say whether this meant that she would not run in the presidential race, Orešković said: "The idea is for Start to have its own candidate for president, but our ultimate goal is the parliamentary election. Everything else will be geared towards achieving that goal. I believe a lot of things will change on the political scene by then, particularly after the European elections, when we will be able to be more specific about the presidential election."
Commenting on media reports about the possibility of former SDP prime minister Zoran Milanović standing for president and asked if he would be a better president than the incumbent, Orešković said: "I prefer new faces and new forces in politics. As for Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, I consider her entire term in office to be a failure which has degraded both the function and role of the head of state. The sum of her gaffes, bad messages and failure to take a stand on vital problems in society leads me to the conclusion that I can hardly think of a candidate, at least those that are currently being talked about, who could be worse than her."
Asked about her opinion of the opposition proposal for a review of the Vatican treaties, which is opposed by both the president and the prime minister and has been rejected by the parliament, Orešković said: "It is important to open dialogue on a review of these treaties, but not in a hostile atmosphere that would lead to further divisions. The way in which the Vatican treaties are now being implemented is not good either for the Church or for the faithful, and this issue is often used to promote individual political groups. I think that the fact that Catholic catechism has been introduced in primary schools as an optional subject does not reflect the spirit of the constitutional values of secularism because of the way it is being implemented. The moment the Church entered the education system in such a way we neglected that basic constitutional principle."
Asked if she thought the president was flirting with the far right, Orešković said: "I think the president is doing much more than that. Everything that we now consider a genie released from a bottle began with her (election). Here I don't mean just the persons she invited to her inauguration, but a series of her moves that were against the spirit of values that a president should embrace." She criticised Grabar-Kitarović for failing to condemn tolerance of symbols related to the Nazi-allied Ustasha regime that ruled Croatia in WWII. "In my opinion that's possibly her biggest failure because that is not what a forward-looking Croatia looks like."
Asked to comment on the ruling majority's stalling the adoption of the new abortion law, Orešković said: "Abortion primarily concerns women's right to freedom of choice. The government is stalling this probably because it is pandering to clerical circles with whom it has colluded for decades on how to run government policy. Ever since Croatia became an independent state, the Church has had too much influence on government decision making. As for the Istanbul Convention, although it has been ratified, the protection of women against violence has not improved in practice. Certain examples show that violence is continuing to grow. There are many implementing measures and laws that need to be upgraded so that the ratification of the Convention would make sense, but it seems to me that there is no political will to ensure an effective protection of women. It's not about money but about good will, because if we have enough money to buy military aircraft, we should also have money to protect our people if we really care about them at all. When it comes to women, this government shows that it doesn't care. The ratification was motivated by the prime minister's desire to show his face of a modern European politician to Europe, but I don't think Plenković has a firm foothold in himself in terms of a value system."
Orešković said she held all HDZ-led governments, and particularly the present one with Prime Minister Plenković at its helm, responsible for the situation in the country. She said that relevant authorities had never reacted to arrangements that had been made for the overindebted Agrokor food and retail conglomerate and that Plenković had "euthanised" the rule of law in Croatia. "Is this the country that we fought for and dreamed of? I don't think so. If all these scandals that occurred during Plenković's term go unpunished, the question will be whether there is anything left in Croatia that is worth saving."
Asked to comment on the growing strength of the parliamentary group of Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandić's party and defections to his group, Orešković said: "There is obviously a secret deal between Milan Bandić and Andrej Plenković, although we citizens do not have any specific proof of political corruption. Bandić is accused of very serious and financially lucrative criminal offences while the judiciary is not particularly quick in addressing these cases. The message that he is sending is that he is in a position to blackmail the government, and we can only speculate what is going on under the table. As long as an independent and effective judiciary is not in place to investigate cases like this independently and proactively, I'm afraid that we others won't be able to do much. The only thing left for the citizens to do is to say a resounding no to Bandić and all the defectors who joined his group at the next elections."
Asked about possible pre-election cooperation with the Amsterdam Coalition or the SDP, Orešković said she saw the space for dialogue primarily among new forces appearing on the political scene, citing the We Can! platform and the Pametno party, given that they too are calling for reducing the number of local government units. As for the Amsterdam Coalition, "I don't see any possibility of entering into a pre-election coalition with them for now."
More news on the Start party can be found in the Politics section.
