ZAGREB, June 23, 2019 - Pop singer Miroslav Škoro announced in a video message on his Facebook page on Sunday morning that he would run for President, saying that his decision was prompted by his belief that Croatia needed a stronger constitutional role for its President.
He said that the gist of his platform was forming an alliance with the people rather than maintaining the rule of political elites who make compromises away from the public eye and against the will of the people.
"I want to be a people's president and accountable only to you," Škoro said, stressing that, if elected, his first move would be to call on Parliament to change the Constitution.
If this initiative is rejected, I will suggest that the Prime Minister call a constitutional referendum, and if he turns down my proposal, I will call on citizens to collect signatures for a referendum, he said, adding that in that case he would like to see who would dare try to ignore the will of the people.
Škoro said that the President of the Republic is the only office holder who represents the entire nation and who receives his or her mandate directly from the people. "That's why the political influence of the President should be proportional to this fact," he said, adding that he does not want to be a decorative president but one that will have enough powers to implement policies for which he has been elected by the people.
These powers should include calling referenda, convening government sessions, nominating candidates for Constitutional Court judges, and a temporary veto.
He stressed that the President must have the right to call a referendum without the Prime Minister's consent.
In a jibe at the incumbent President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, Škoro said he can't promise that Croatia will be among the richest countries in the world, but that he will use all his intellectual and entrepreneurial abilities in the service of the state. Alluding to former SDP prime minister Zoran Milanovic, who is also running for the presidency, he said that Croatia is not "an accidental state" and that he will prove that it is indeed a successful project that has been jeopardised by incompetent politicians.
"I want to restore trust in the institution of the President of the Republic and I need your vote so that together we can give fresh impetus to Croatian culture and science," he said and added that if elected, he will advocate the European Union as a community of equal and sovereign nations, rather than a federation or a unitary state, and will protect the interests of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina and other neighbouring countries and promote closer ties between Croatia and its diaspora.
Škoro said that illegal migration and terrorism are the biggest security threats to Croatia and that Croatia must win support from European partners to defend the common border of the European Union. He said that the modernisation of the Croatian army must continue so as to deter anyone with territorial claims on Croatia or anyone that may wish to bring Croatia into a subordinate position.
Škoro called on all disillusioned voters to go to the polls and help him return government to the people. He said that Croatia today is governed by a controlled party system, with the two strongest parties rotating in power and backed by their trading partners.
He said that the political elites are completely alienated from the people and arrogant to the extent that they use all sorts of tricks to prevent referendums. "The loss of trust in the institutions of the state has assumed worrying proportions, with some even referring to Croatia as an unsuccessful project," Škoro said.
He said that "hundreds and thousands of Croatian daughters and sons" have emigrated because they had no chance here without a party membership card. "They simply didn't want to live in a country in which a spiral of hatred and intolerance is eating away its very foundations. This is not the Croatia which our ancestors dreamt of, which Dr Franjo Tuđman set out to create and which Croatian defenders fought and died for."
Škoro said that the victory in the 1991-1995 Homeland War and the unity achieved during that time must be a starting point in the development of the modern Croatian state, and that in such circumstances Croatia needs a president that will be "a tool of the people" for a decisive change.
More news about elections can be found in the Politics section.
