ZAGREB, 9 Oct, 2021 - Vukovar Mayor Ivan Penava was elected president of the Homeland Movement on Saturday at an extraordinary assembly of this opposition party, saying he accepted the challenge to "claim Croatia back from those who took it."
Penava was the only candidate for the position and was elected unanimously.
He said he did not want the Homeland Movement to be just another party "because there's no more time for that."
"We are not here because this is the Croatia that thousands of generations fought for. We are here because we have no other homeland... We stood up against hopelessness and despondency, against a creeping occupation and hypocrisy. We stood up against those who have turned Our Beautiful (Homeland) into Their Sorrowful, a state which is not even their homeland," Penava said in his speech.
Croatia is not ruled by citizens, the government does not listen to them, he said, telling "self-aware Croatians, citizens... Don't listen to those who don't listen to you, don't choose those who don't choose you."
Penava also had a message for his former party, the ruling HDZ, saying "the policy they are pursuing is not the policy" of Franjo Tuđman, the party's founder and Croatia's first president.
He said the Homeland Movement would build Croatia only through work, commitment and honesty. "With this government, Croatia has no future because the best of us, our children, are leaving."
The Homeland Movement elected a new president after breaking up with its founder and former leader, Miroslav Škoro, who stepped down in July "for personal reasons."
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