ZAGREB, 4 May, 2021 - President Zoran Milanović said on Tuesday that law professor Zlata Đurđević was his candidate for the Supreme Court president and asked members of parliament to think carefully before they reject her because he would not give up.

"I am taking this opportunity to ask members of parliament to think carefully about whether they want to turn down such a competent and good candidate for the Supreme Court president, because we have never had a better candidate," Milanović told reporters during a visit to Ogulin.

Đurđević morally, intellectually up to the task, competent

"They should disregard all the lies, fabrications, Lex Perković... That was all a lie, she is completely clean, morally and intellectually up to the task, as well as competent. If they choose to vote against her, I will not hang tough on this nomination."

Milanović repeated that Đurđević was his candidate, that under the Constitution he proposed the candidate for Supreme Court president and that no parliamentary committee or the Supreme Court Council would be able to change his mind.

"I am the President, I propose the candidate and explain my choice and the parliament has the right to turn them down," he said.

"I believe that the parliamentary majority will opt for the candidate whom I consider excellent. I will ask each MP individually to state the reasons they are against her," Milanović said, dismissing speculation that the judicial authorities were in a state of crisis.

Asked if he would meet with Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, Milanović said that he was always ready for talks with the prime minister.

"I invited him to lay wreaths with me in Okučani, he chickened out," he said.

As for Sunday's incident in Borovo Selo, where a group of young men marched through the town chanting anti-Serb messages, Milanović repeated that police were under the influence of politics, that is, Minister of the Interior Davor Božinović and PM Plenković, and that he considered them responsible for the incident.

Asked about Serb minority MP Milorad Pupovac's comment that Milanović, too, was responsible for incidents, Milanović said ironically "Yes, I'm to blame for the Kennedy assassination as well. He was killed in 1963, I was born in 1966 but I had my hand in it."

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ZAGREB, 4 May, 2021 - There are nearly 39,000 candidates running in the local elections which Croatia will hold on 16 May, and their average age is 45, according to statistics released by the State Electoral Commission (DIP).

The two youngest candidates are a man and a woman, who both turned 18 on 29 March this year.

The youngest female candidate is on the slate of a four-party coalition led by the HSS Stjepan Radić party, and the youngest male candidate is on the slate of the HSP party.

The oldest female candidate, 91, is on the slate of the Zagorska Stranka za Zagreb party in the City of Zagreb.

The oldest male candidate, 92, is on the slate of a group of voters led by Dražen Vranić.

Many slates are gender-imbalanced

The DIP has given an instruction that the representation of any gender should not be below 40%. However, the instruction has not been followed in some cases and there are several slates consisting only of male candidates.

Such slates are valid, however, those who submit them can be fined up to 20,000 kuna.

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ZAGREB, 9 April, 2021 - The Pensioners Together platform, which brings together a number of pensioners' associations and parties, on Friday presented its candidate for Zagreb Mayor, Milivoj Špika, and the candidate for deputy mayor, Blanka Sunara.

Addressing a news conference, Špika said that some candidates for Zagreb mayor behaved like revolutionaries, wishing to destroy current structures and announcing radical changes, while others acted as if Zagreb were their loot.

"Zagreb needs someone who will carry out peaceful transition from the current model of governance to a new model of running the city," Špika said, adding that the platform would focus on pensioners, workers with inadequate pay, people with blocked bank accounts and other social groups.

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ZAGREB, 23 March, 2021 - President Zoran Milanović on Tuesday commented on the Constitutional Court's decision made earlier in the day, saying in a Facebook post that rigging a competition for a post was a criminal act and that Judge Zlata Đurđević continued to be his candidate for the Supreme Court president.

"Zlata Đurđević is still my candidate and the HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union), regardless of how difficult it may find it, will have to take a vote on her. For or against, and that will make everything clear," Milanović said after the Constitutional Court earlier in the day concluded by a majority vote that the President of the Republic can nominate for the post of the Supreme Court president only a candidate who has submitted an application following a public call by the State Judicial Council (DSV).

Milanović's candidate, Zagreb Law School professor Zlata Đurđević, was not among the three candidates who submitted their applications to the DSV.

Milanović also commented on statements made today by Constitutional Court President Miroslav Šeparović, alluding to media reports about his close friendship with senior HDZ member Vladimir Šeks.

"If public competitions, advertisements and public calls are possibly rigged, that is not the reason to abolish them but rather to enable the election of the best candidate through democratic control - so tells us Šeks's close friend at the Constitutional Court. And he adds that laws must be applied, I quote, 'meaningfully'," Milanović wrote on Facebook, adding "First of all, a competition and a public call are not the same. One more thing you have not learned. And rigging a competition is a criminal act. That goes for everyone, including close friends. You should have learned that."

The president described most Constitutional Court judges as the HDZ's bargaining chips whose role was to save the incumbent Supreme Court President Đuro Sessa, whom he described as "a soldier of the HDZ-run judiciary."

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ZAGREB, 6 March, 2021 - The Homeland Movement (DP) leader, Miroslav Škoro, on Saturday presented his agenda as a mayoral candidate in the Croatian capital city of Zagreb, and on that occasion he said if elected, he would provide free-of-charge services in the city's kindergartens as of this autumn.

"I assure you that the Jakuševac landfill will be closed and that waste management will be improved," Škoro said in Zagreb's Cvjetni Trg Square.

He also promised the construction of a state-of-the-art hospital and of a national stadium which could maybe named after the late footballer Zlatko Cici Kranjčar.

One of Škoro's promises is the reduction of the city surcharge by three percentage points.

"One epoch is over and it is high time we introduced a new model of managing Zagreb in accordance with the needs of its residents and the 21st century," said Škoro, who confirmed speculations that he would run for the Zagreb mayor a few days after the funeral of the mayor Milan Bandić.

Škoro also expressed his readiness to make a coalition with everybody provided that there is no trade-off or blackmailing. 

ZAGREB, May 24, 2020 - Nino Raspudic, a professor of Italian language and literature at Zagreb's Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, who is more known as a political analyst and columnist, said on Sunday that he would be a candidate on a slate of the Bridge party in the 5 July elections.

Announcing his political engagement in the next parliamentary elections, Raspudic said in the HTV's talks show on Sunday that he had been writing articles as a political columnist for newspapers for more than 10 years.

"This has been a sort of political work. It was not engagement party-wise, however, I have made some impact on shaping political discourse in Croatia," said this university professor, born in Mostar in 1975.

Raspudic said that "the democratic deficit" in Croatia, in the European Union and globally, when it comes to election processes, was the main reason why he had decided to run in the elections.

Raspudic's announcement ensued a few days after the Bridge party said that his wife Marija Selak Raspudic, a philosopher and political analyst, decided to run in the elections as an independent candidate on its slates.

The Raspudic couple has been perceived in the public as a reinforcement for Bridge after several officials and parliamentarians left the party or said they would not run in the next election, including Slaven Dobrovic, a former environmental protection minister, Ines Strenja, Ivana Nincevic-Lesnadric, and Robert Podolnjak.