ZAGREB, July 24, 2019 - Social Democratic Party (SDP) president Davor Bernardić said on Tuesday it was necessary to put up bilingual signs in Vukovar as constitutional issues regulating the protection of ethnic minorities must be neither contentious nor questionable for the SDP.
The constitution must be honoured, he said on RTL television when asked how to resolve the situation in the eastern town after the Constitutional Court ruled that the rights of Serbs in Vukovar must be enhanced and the parliamentary committee on ethnic minorities called on the government to put up bilingual signs on state institution buildings there.
Asked if he expected an extraordinary parliamentary sitting on the MOST party's motion for a no-confidence vote in Health Minister Milan Kujundžić, Bernardić said holding the sitting and discussing the motion was a constitutional obligation. He added that the SDP MPs on the parliamentary committee on the constitution had asked the Constitutional Court's opinion on the matter.
If the court does not take a position, we will have to ask the president to convene the sitting, Bernardić said.
Asked if the fact that Prime Minister Andrej Plenković had replaced some ministers whose dismissal the SDP had demanded was the start of a big coalition between the SDP and the ruling HDZ party, he dismissed the possibility.
"There's no coalition with the HDZ, the most corrupt party in Croatia right now. Plenković's government was forced to make the reshuffle. The public sees why the ministers had to go. Only DORH (State Prosecutor's Office), which is doing nothing about it, doesn't see."
Asked whether it would good if the Croatian People's Party, the HDZ's coalition partner, supported the SDP's presidential candidate Zoran Milanović, Bernardić said no one could be stopped from backing Milanović. "But my position is known. There's no cooperation with the party which betrayed its voters... by running into this coalition which exists on political corruption."
He said President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović had not fulfilled her campaign promises.
He also commented on former football mogul Zdravko Mamić's accusations of corruption against Supreme Court president Đuro Sessa, saying they were serious accusations which hit at the foundation of the democratic and judicial order. He called on the authorities to investigate the accusations.
More SDP news can be found in the Politics section.
