ZAGREB, February 29, 2020 - The candidate for the president of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party, Miro Kovač, on Friday submitted more than 17,000 signatures supporting his bid, as well as signatures supporting candidates from his team for deputy president and vice-presidents.
The candidate for deputy president, Vukovar mayor Ivan Penava, submitted 16,718 signatures, while the candidates for vice-presidents Milijan Brkić, Tomislav Tolušić and Davor Ivo Stier submitted 16,262, 15,976 and 16,283 signatures respectively.
Kovač said that they had received very positive responses on the ground, adding that party members wanted change knowing that in this way the HDZ could not win the forthcoming parliamentary election, due in the autumn.
"The current HDZ leadership and the current president have no coalition potential. The people in my team have a profile that guarantees that we will be able to win the election for the Croatian parliament and form the next government," Kovac told the press.
He said that they were looking forward to a competition within the party, noting that their colleagues from the rival team, led by Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, were not their opponents but friends whom they wanted to "defeat in a sportsmanlike fashion."
Kovač said that there was place for all the people in the party and that he would not divide the party. He said he was looking forward to competing with the incumbent party president, Andrej Plenković.
Asked if he was satisfied with the number of signatures collected, given that the other team had collected considerably more, Kovač said that they did not want to exhaust themselves collecting signatures, noting that the number of signatures collected for the last presidential election was not decisive.
More HDZ news can be found in the Politics section.
