ZAGREB, March 30, 2020 - The Social Democratic Party (SDP) wants parliament not to stop sitting for as long as the coronavirus epidemic lasts, recommending that parliament should sit from Monday to Friday and not from Wednesday to Friday as is now the case.

The chairman of the SDP's parliamentary group, Arsen Bauk, sent a letter to Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković on Monday calling for the current sitting to continue until 3 April as previously scheduled and that during that time the Sabor should sit every working day.

There are still 81 items on the agenda that have not been discussed yet, and the SDP forwarded a package of nine bills to parliament on March 27 aimed at supporting the economy during the crisis caused by the coronavirus epidemic and which the party believes should be debated as soon as possible at a plenary session.

The strongest opposition party also proposed that at the meeting of the Sabor's presidency, scheduled for 1 April, a decision be adopted according to which the agenda would prioritise items related to relieving the health and economic consequences of the coronavirus epidemic.

The SDP further suggested that the number of lawmakers allowed to be present at the same time during a plenary session be determined using the same criteria as when determining the number of MPs per parliamentary group who can ask questions during Question Time and that the parliament's working bodies and presidency meetings be held via video conference due to the extraordinary circumstances.

More coronavirus news can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, March 21, 2020 - The opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) requested on Saturday that MPs and other state officials, except Health Minister Vili Beroš, work for a minimum wage for the next three months in solidarity with the many citizens being affected by the coronavirus crisis.

The amount saved should go to businesses so they can keep jobs and pay a minimum wage to those most vulnerable.

"We need every kuna for the socially vulnerable, the sick, the functioning of healthcare and the payment of pensions, for helping the shaken economy," SDP president Davor Bernardić said.

He proposed that part of the money be allocated as bonuses to doctors, nurses and other hospital staff "who treat citizens from this disease."

Bernardić said that ten days ago the SDP proposed more rigorous protection measures and presented 15 measures to cushion the fallout on citizens and the economy.

He said that although the government adopted some of those measures, implementation was late. "Citizens and entrepreneurs still don't know what to do... many people are losing their jobs, incomes for their families."

Bernardić again warned about those using the crisis to raise the prices of food and medical equipment, appealing to the authorities to immediately start dealing with that.

More coronavirus news can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, March 7, 2020 - Social Democratic Party (SDP) leader Davor Bernardić said on Saturday that he was not discriminating against anyone, least of all women, and that his statement about the party's coordinators for the forthcoming elections was misinterpreted.

He was responding to negative comments triggered by his statement in an interview with Hina that there were no women among the SDP coordinators for the forthcoming elections because it was no time for experimentation and this work should be done by "proven operatives on the ground."

"These days we can see some trying to accuse me and the SDP of discrimination against women. I can see that some have tried to misinterpret my statements today as well. My statement may have been awkward, but that doesn't mean I'm not aware of women's contribution to the SDP, to the campaign, and how responsibly and hard they work on the ground," Bernardić said on his Facebook page.

By suggesting a zipped nominations model, with women and men candidates alternating in terms of their placement on the election list, "I wanted to show that I value and respect their work, and I will show that again in putting together lists for the forthcoming elections. I am not discriminating against anyone, least of all women, because women will continue to have my absolute support as they have so far. For me, more women in politics means better, more responsible and more honest politics, which also means a better Croatia."

He said he was proud and happy that all SDP lists for the Croatian parliament would have 50 percent of women and 50 percent of men, which in turn would ensure the equal number of women and men in politics.

"I call on other parties to follow our path. It doesn't cost any money, but it does cost a lot of effort, and a few bruised male egos. My message to those who are attacking me is that I will take a step further in expanding women's rights in the party by introducing a parity in elections for party bodies. Our task is to build gender equality into the foundations of our society," Bernardić said.

He concluded his post by wishing all women a happy Women's Day, marked on 8 March.

More SDP news can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, February 23, 2020 - Croatia's strongest opposition party, the Social Democrats (SDP), on Friday unveiled the main guidelines of their platform for the next parliamentary election, due in the autumn, saying that the party was seeking to secure order and stability.

Addressing party members and sympathisers in Koprivnica, 100 km northeast of Zagreb, SDP leader Davor Bernardić said that Croatia is currently ruled by corruption, there is a lack of trust in the institutions of the state, the ruling parties are unable to muster a majority in parliament, and the country is left without its chief state attorney.

"That's why the SDP seeks to secure order and stability through its programme. We will address judicial reform and the need to increase wages and pensions because a million people cannot live in dignity on the wages and pensions they currently receive. We want to provide subsidised rental housing for young people because we know that most of them are uncreditworthy and that's why we want to help them solve their housing problems so that they would stay in Croatia," Bernardić said.

He said that the SDP would need partners to win the election, adding that they would negotiate with two parties of pensioners, the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), the Civic Liberal Alliance (GLAS) of Anka Mrak-Taritaš, the Istrian Party (IDS) and all others with which they shared the same values.

Koprivnica mayor Mišel Jakšić, seen as one of the most successful SDP mayors in the country, said that he had just returned from Israel, "a country that has turned its desert territory into fertile land, while we can see our country, which is rich in natural resources, turning into a desert in many areas."

More SDP news can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, February 22, 2020 - Social Democratic Party (SDP) leader Davor Bernardić said on Saturday that his party would form the government after the next parliamentary election, deal with the current "chaos" in society and restore trust in state institutions as well as hope.

Bernardić said this at an event at which he and the head of the SDP branch in Zagreb, Gordan Maras, presented party membership cards to about 100 new party members.

Also presented were the Zagreb SDP branch's draft local policies for the period from 2020 to 2030, called "Zagreb - A smart city".

SDP member Davorka Moslavac Forjan said the local SDP branch advocated a city that would be transparent, inclusive, digitalised, a city of good living and more green areas.

"Andrej Plenković and Milan Bandić are the father and mother of political corruption in Croatia. Croatia and Zagreb need a change. Zagreb must not be a problem city. Zagreb's residents pay the highest utility bills in Europe and are drowning in garbage. Zagreb is a city of false promises and failed projects," said Bernardić, adding that the city should be an engine of the country's development.

Maras said that the SDP was a leader of change in Zagreb and that it would give Zagreb back to its residents.

He said that a grand coalition between the SDP and the HDZ was impossible. "I consider a coalition with the HDZ not only repulsive, I can't even imagine it," Maras said when asked by reporters to comment on Minister of the Interior and HDZ member Davor Božinović's ruling out a grand coalition with the SDP.

Maras added that the HDZ had to purge itself from its coalition with Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandić and his party.

Asked about the SDP's position on Sunday work, Maras said that one could not ban Sunday work as police, public services and hospitals work on Sundays.

He believes that Sunday work should be adequately remunerated and that remuneration should be such to discourage those who work on Sundays just for the sake of profit.

He added that the SDP would present its proposals on Sunday work.

More SDP news can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, February 15, 2020 - Social Democratic Party (SDP) president Davor Bernardić said on Saturday there was big potential for cooperation with the Istrian Democratic Party (IDS) in the next parliamentary election, adding that the SDP would "lead the winning coalition."

"There is potential for cooperation with the IDS because we cooperated well in the past. But we are talking with all parties with which we share the same world view, and what is certain is that the SDP will lead the winning coalition which will bring much needed change in our country," Bernardić said in Pazin, where he attended a ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of the IDS.

He added that the SDP was already talking with parties with which it shared the values of freedom, solidarity, anti-fascism and anti-corruption. "We will strongly insist on our programme to fight corruption and for judicial reform."

IDS president Boris Miletić said the successes of Istria County and the IDS surpassed the party and that they reflected the spirit of the local people. He said the IDS was a regional "avant-garde (party) different from others."

"We secured bilingualism, talked about a faraway Europe and advocated the then unpopular notions of anti-fascism, coexistence, multi-ethnicity and multi-culturalism," he said, adding that the IDS was alone in fighting for those values in the 1990s, yet now they are part of Croatia's legislation.

The ceremony was attended, among others, by President-elect Zoran Milanović, the leaders of the parties the IDS cooperates with as part of the Amsterdam Coalition, and Dutch MEP Hans van Baalen, president of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe to which the IDS belongs.

More SDP news can be found in the Politics section.

The author of the following text, prof. Dr. Boris Podobnik, Vice-Dean for Science and Head of Business Analytics at ZSEM, is one of the most cited Croatian scientists. This prominent Croatian scientist is also a professor of physics at the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the University of Rijeka. He is an expert in interdisciplinary science, network theory, game theory, migration and corruption.

As Index/prof. Dr. Boris Podobnik writes on the 10th of February, 2020, a number of Croats are delighted when HDZ loses the elections and is replaced by SDP, and a similar number of Croats look forward to anything of the opposite. If one looks at how Croatia's GDP has changed with who was in power, it can be seen that Croatia sank steadily regardless of which of the two parties headed the country.

For some, personal worldview may mean something to them, whether they watch reports about Bleiburg or Tito, but there are those among us, both leftists and right-wingers, and those who are somewhere in between, for whom arguments over Tito and Bleiburg are far more important than whether we're among the more successful or worst countries in EU will ever be. If either of these parties must continue to rule, is there any chance of them being forced to change?

The prominent Croatian scientist then goes on to showcase just how the Croatian public can finally manage to rid itself of the chains of both HDZ and SDP.

1. Encouraging private enterprise, economic freedom and innovation throughout society

The main reason for Croatia's undeniable decline - more precisely the setbacks and lagging when compared to other countries - is that the whole world is in the mode of capitalism and private enterprise, and our SDP and HDZ governments are building policies that favour the public and state sectors, as if there were still communist regimes in the world (read Europe). Preferring the public sector to the private sector in the face of globalisation and private enterprise is as smart a choice as, for example, insisting on tango dancing because you're a passionate Latino lover - while the orchestra plays the waltz.

And that is exactly how the Croatian economy is. A shaky state that is forcing the public sector, with its high levels of corruption and stifling private initiative, to be doomed to fail, again, because the world is in the mode of capitalism.

Of course, there are thriving public sectors in the world, but only in societies with a low tolerance for corruption, such as the developed Western democracies, especially the Nordic countries or in Asia, in Singapore. In these countries, the public sector is also based on the principles of the private sector: good workers and professionals are valued, and wages are at least partly linked to work performance. This is not necessarily in conflict with the existence of a union; in the Swedish public sector, unions negotiate wages, but in a completely decentralised manner. This means that the salaries of the professors are not decided by the union pharaohs, but are negotiated at the national, regional and educational levels.

This allows good professors to directly choose better pay and better working conditions. But this level of civilisation is science-fiction for both Croatian politicians and for Croatian trade unionists. Who will organise such key economic institutions that will be resistant to elections and blackmail on both sides? It's clear to us that wherever HDZ or SDP are, the grass doesn't grow when it comes to quality staff. It happens, but rarely. And when it does, these people are drowned in a sea of ​​fools with certain Croatian party memberships.

I can say to my friends that Chinese Communists would be happy to follow and develop Mao Tse-Tung Communism, but they realised that introducing a free market and copying the West, especially America, was a necessary prerequisite for faster economic growth, convergence towards the West, and keeping up with it.

Unfortunately, what the Chinese Communists managed to understand is not understood by the Croatian leftists, nor is it by the right-wingers, because they love the public sector and uhljebism more than their wives (or husbands). On the contrary, they would constantly expand the public sector because that is what membership is looking for, and it is precisely the membership that chooses the president of the party.

Our platform, more precisely the Third Way, must insist on economic freedoms and private enterprise, not on state intervention, because there are currently too many non-experts and economic analfabets in the state apparatus, who lead firms which only know how to accumulate losses and ultimately lead the state to ruin. If we don't alter, the Greek scenario is inevitable - it's only a matter of time. It is true that the Greeks didn't have King Tomislav and Prince Domagoj, but they did give Aristotle, Archimedes, and a plethora of minds who created our civilisation, but these minds didn't leave Greece with generations of people who would prevent the Greek economic collapse. So let us try.

2. Replacing party staff with professionals

In connection with the first objective, the deregulation of the state and economic freedoms, unlike the party duopoly, we must demand that state-owned firms and agencies be run not by party people, but by the best personnel to be found either in Croatia or abroad.

There is nothing more stupid than when you hear from the mouths of HDZ or SDP politicians that they're setting up their people to do the job because that's a prerequisite for running the business well. Why does the head of SDP and the head of the water supply and sewer system need to be someone who is left-wing? Because the faeces wouldn't flow properly if the company wasn't headed by a left-leaning person, a man of a particular worldview? These jokers are Croatian politicians.

Croatia Airlines has been failing for years because they're politically fit rather than actually capable. I experience a mild stroke every time I see that our national airline has astronomical losses in a country visited by 20 million tourists each year! Well, did everyone arrive on horses, on camels, or did they just arrive on foot? We, as a platform, must insist that state-owned companies have the most capable of candidates, be they Croats, Finns or Swedes, and regardless of their political orientation.

They clearly must then have higher salaries than the prime minister because the prime minister is a political function, in contrast to heads of state-owned firms who must be professionals. Then the Croatian prime minister must grumble that he has a lower salary than the heads of state-owned firms, but that shouldn't be a problem for him if he's truly patriotic and uncorrupted.

It is better for any of our state-owned companies to have a foreign professional at the head than someone who speaks excellent Croatian but is absolutely nothing of an expert in the field. Language is not important for running a state-owned company because the only thing that matters is that the state-owned company doesn't accumulate losses. If state-owned firms generally don't accumulate losses, the state as a whole will not follow the Greek scenario, and this scenario is likely if the firms are led by the HDZ-SDP duopoly.

Contrary to what the new president Milanovic thinks, former Prime Minister Oreskovic (at least in my opinion) was the most capable prime minister because, although he did not speak brilliant Croatian, he didn't allow for any uhljebljivanje, which is why they hated him in HDZ and in SDP as well. So, I take my hat off to him.

3. Improving the position of the private sector versus the public and the state

In Croatia, you often hear, especially from the heads of public sector unions, that "salaries in public services are lagging behind salaries in the private sector". This is total nonsense and a misunderstanding of the economy, and in economics and finance, what is riskier has to bear a higher yield, and so stocks in an unpredictable market are riskier than government bonds, and they therefore have to bear a higher yield.

If jobs in the private sector are much riskier than jobs in public services, and they are because let's say it's easier to lose your job and the work is more stressful, then salaries in the private sector must necessarily be higher than salaries in public services, which I wrote about in a scientific paper article with my colleague Vukovic. In feudalism, the peasants were serfs, and if one rebelled for example because they eat less frequently than the feudal lords, then he'd be dismembered or decapitated.

But today, when feudalism is no longer in effect, that layer of society is no longer obliged to serve on a specific part of the land owned by feudal lords, and disenfranchised private-sector workers are allowed to go west, where it's better for them.

Public sector workers can claim greater rights, often rights that those in the private sector can only dream of, but there are fewer and fewer private sector workers who should be guaranteed these rights because, owing to such things, private sector workers are increasingly leaving their jobs and heading to the West, where not only do they have higher wages, but indeed more rights, and this is not negligible for workers.

If we don't work on a significant increase in wages in the private sector, people will constantly be fleeing to the west. Today in the EU, patriotism is out of fashion and when it's out of fashion, why live in Croatia as a worker? It's nice to go to Germany or Austria because you can live there in a more dignified and better way.

To stop people leaving to go to the West, the Third Way platform must educate the public that wages in the private sector must be higher than in the public sector.

I don't see massive transitions from the public to the private sector, but I know quite a few people in the private sector who would be happy to settle for the public sector. That the private sector is at greater risk is economic nonsense and must change, otherwise we will just experience an unprecedented exodus of people from the private sector.

4. Radical reforms that will transform Croatia into Switzerland, not Moldova

Radical economic and social reforms must be sought because talking about becoming Switzerland or one of the richest EU countries, as they know so well how to do during election campaigns, without actually carrying out serious reforms - only economically illiterate person can suggest.

A successful society like that of the Swiss is a well-placed pyramid where if you're smarter and more successful, the higher up you are. In Croatia, thanks to corruption and nepotism, only the stupid and the incompetent are at the very top. There is absolutely nothing worse for an employee than his superior being completely ignorant or even a notorious idiot. Unfortunately for Croatia, in the past decades, thanks to HDZ and SDP to a greater extent, the state apparatus has accumulated a sea of ​​incompetent party cadres who couldn't get a fair job through the proper process, but only with the help of a party membership card or because of nepotism.

On the contrary, there is also nepotism in the form of political strife, which is also seen in the emergence of young politicians who ascend into parties and any state legal and political bodies simply because they are someone's spouse, son or daughter, uncle or cousin, or son or daughter-in-law.

As both major parties base their political activities on uhljebljivanje, it just doesn't occur to them to reduce the number of uhljebs, because uhljebs and those who are about to become uhljebs are their members, and it determines not only the party president, but also the prime minister.

If the country has that thirty-year title of ''uhljeb capital'' then how can we expect to reach the level of Switzerland, Singapore or some other civilised country with a bunch of unnecessary people in the state apparatus? Clearly, the incompetent and the corrupt cannot be monitored, they're so incompetent that they cannot even be repaired because they're the cancer of society, and in medicine - that means surgical removal.

True, we're not doctors, and the state is not a human body, so we approach the malignant tumor of society as surgeons who also cut the surrounding healthy tissue "just in case," but what we can and must do is "cut off," say, 30 percent of the worst.

5. A corrupt state prefers inclined quasi-entrepreneurs and punishes the capable ones

In a democracy, you get power if you have a majority, and there aren't enough HDZ and SDP members enough to constitute a government. On top of that, there isn't enough money for everyone to live well.

First, these people get who I call "dreamers of corruption" on their side, which are those who don't benefit from corruption because they're not in a corrupt quagmire, but would be happy to be in one if given the opportunity. They're often not enough to make up a majority either, so the corrupt authorities are constantly attracting quasi-entrepreneurs, giving them jobs within the state. Such quasi-entrepreneurs survive on the market mainly through business with the state, and thus become advocates of the status quo because they fear change.

Both the left and the right have their "own" entrepreneurs, but the right probably has more of them. Quasi-entrepreneurs, those who, for example, don't pay their workers, enter the ruling party smoothly, so that the government, or the state, helps them with pre-bankruptcy settlements, or tax exemptions. In doing so, the corrupt state constantly wants to increase the number of such dependent businesses, and it wants to increase them in such a way as to assimilate them like Star Trek's Borg, making it difficult for honest businesses to do business.

Eventually what happens is that honest businessmen die out and go extinct and the only ones who remain are the ones the left-wingers rightly call exploiters. These are individuals for whom workers are slaves to harass, threaten, and not pay.

But the problem for leftists is that they don't see the iron boot of the state, which makes the business climate unfavourable to free enterprise. When businesses are small, there are very few new jobs and few job choices for workers. The worker is not, then, a "sought commodity" and therefore cannot negotiate for a higher salary and choose employers so that he goes to the one who gives him better pay and working conditions. Even worse is when the private sector starts hiring people the party key - when the duopoly gives jobs to the private sector, then in turn, they ask them to hire a relative or party-mate and put them in a high position. This only exists with huge firms.

This is an advanced economic metastasis that needs radical therapy. Therapy is certainly not some new stud of "professional overseers of corruption", but a drastic reduction in state influence in all walks of life of citizens. A tumor is not treated with chamomile, a tumor is ripped out.

But if both SDP and HDZ have amassed a large number of people on their side, how can we, the minority that wants to create a ''Switzerland'', make a change? If they're prone to radical change by the minority, is there any chance of change? Yes, because fortunately HDZ and SDP don't like each other despite their enormous level of similarity and therefore need smaller parties for power. If we, as a bloc, collect at least ten percent of the assembly, those who don't want change will have to implement it, because without this new bloc, they will not be in power.

Are we ashamed of sinking and wanting a rich, not poor Croatia? In Croatia, the left-right conflict is no longer important, but "are you ashamed of failing or not"? If you're not too ashamed, stick with the HDZ-SDP duopoly because they're not for change, because their own membership is more dear to them than their country is. If you are ashamed, there is a third option that is for a strong private sector, but also for a strong public sector, which is not a hindrance but a service to the private sector. It is so in the west, but it isn't in Croatia at the moment.

Make sure to follow our dedicated politics and business pages for more.

ZAGREB, February 9, 2020 - Social Democrat leader Davor Bernardić said on Saturday that in the next elections voters would be able to choose between "the SDP's vision of a progressive Croatia" and a conservative vision of individual interest groups from the current government.

As for speculations about a grand coalition, Bernardić told the main committee of this leading Opposition party that the SDP would accept only the formation of a grand coalition with Croatian citizens.

"The elections are ahead of us. One should decide about what kind of Croatia we want," he said.

Bernardić went on to say that the Croatian citizens "are faced with the clearest political choice so far: between our vision of a progressive and well-arranged Croatia in which citizens and institutions work together in efforts to address the biggest development challenges and an unruly, conservative Croatia in which the future of the state and its citizens lies in the hands of individual interests of the ruling party," alluding to the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).

In the year ahead of us we must show to citizens that we are able again to take responsibility for running the country, the SDP leader said.

It is important for the SDP to offer solutions for the essential problems of citizens and we have assumed a general attitude: a rise in the living standards, which includes higher salaries and pensions, a more equitable society, which means the fight against corruption and the reform of the judiciary, he said accusing the current government of deepening social inequalities and "maintaining the economic system that does not yield results to the benefit of individuals."

The SDP will take three pillars for its election agenda: a sustainable and inclusive economy, fair and sympathetic society and efficient and accessible state institutions, he announced, calling for both economic and societal recovery.

"We are going to create preconditions for the introduction of the euro in Croatia. We will not wait, we will make decisions, we will not postpone necessary changes as we could see in the last four years," Bernardić said.

During the session of the SDP Main Committee, Croatia's President-elect Zoran Milanović, who used to be at the helm of the SDP for ten years before Bernardić, thanked the party for its support during the recent campaign. Milanović's address was held behind the closed doors.

On Monday, Milanović will relinquish his membership of SDP in line with the Croatian legislation that requires that heads of state are not members of any political party.

More SDP news can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, February 8, 2020 - President-elect Zoran Milanović on Saturday attended a session of the SDP Main Committee to say goodbye to his soon-to-be former party colleagues, saying that "if the truth were the only election criterion, the SDP would be in power forever."

"Even when we slip, we speak with the best intentions, and it has been so for 30 years. We had governments and people didn't leave those governments nor were they expelled because of corruption scandals, dishonesty, betrayal of the public trust, practically ever. I'd say the choice is simple: the truth, vote for Croatia's left wing, you're on the right track," Milanović said in a closed-door speech which Hina obtained unofficially.

However, that is not so and when you prepare for the parliamentary election, which you have already started to do, keep that in mind, he told the Social Democratic Party members. People vote first and foremost according to their wishes, he added.

"Fight for the truth, and the guarantor of the truth in democracy are three institutions: an independent academia in the broad sense, notably in natural sciences, freed and independent media, and civil society. There's no democracy without that."

Thanking the SDP members for helping him win the presidential election, Milanović said he won "only 100,000 more votes than his opponent, the incumbent president."

In democracy, that is sometimes the fate of the truth. This time it was a good fate, we are successful, we won, we were given the chance to set the rhythm, dynamic and pulse of society and I to do so over the next five years within the limited presidential powers, Milanovic said.

"Over the next five years all those who fight for the truth, for justice, which is a somewhat less tangible phenomenon and notion, will have my support. To fight for those who are weaker is our mission. We are not the Church, we are Social Democrats and we do that by civil means, and that job is full of substance and sense."

Milanović was the presidential candidate of 13 left-liberal parties led by the SDP.

According to unofficial reports, he will leave the party, which he must do under the law, on Monday.

More news about Zoran Milanović can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, January 18, 2020 - Social Democratic Party (SDP) leader Davor Bernardić said on Saturday in Ogulin, where the party leadership met to discuss preparations for parliamentary elections, that as the SDP's leader, he was the party's only candidate for prime minister.

Bernardić said the fairest thing to do would be to hold parliamentary elections as soon as possible as the current parliament had long stopped representing voters' will, with "as many as 28 deputies having crossed the floor."

"The ruling coalition is a result of political trade-offs in the parliament, so the fairest thing to do would be to call the elections as soon as possible so that voters can decide who will be leading the country. We are ready for the elections, whenever they are held this year," Bernardić told SDP officials who gathered for an operational meeting after last week they appointed ten coordinators for constituencies.

Bernardić believes that Croatia is at a crossroads. "Citizens have said that they want changes, the outcome of the European election was not accidental, it is a result of the SDP's hard work and great energy, good candidates and good organisation and that outcome created preconditions for the success of our presidential candidate Zoran Milanovic," he said.

He said that work on the party's platform was nearing completion and that it contained key solutions for higher living standards, higher salaries and pensions, reform of the health and education systems, and greater trust in state institutions.

"The SDP not only has policies, it has people to implement those policies," Bernardić said and when asked if he was the only candidate for prime minister, he said that as the SDP's leader, he was the only candidate for prime minister.

As for possible coalition partners, he said that those were parties from the Anti-corruption Council, the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), the Croatian Pensioners' Party (HSU) and SNAGA. The SDP will talk also to other parties that share the same worldview and that supported Milanovic in the presidential elections, he said.

Asked about HSS leader Krešo Beljak's controversial tweet about assassinations by the Yugoslav secret service UDBA, Bernardić said that he had condemned it in the strongest terms, that the SDP had distanced itself from it and that Beljak had apologised for it more than once, as well as that the HSS would stay the SDP's partner.

SDP secretary-general Nikša Vukas said that talks were underway about possible coalitions.

Asked to comment on HDZ vice-president Milijan Brkić's statement that Bernardić would never be prime minister, Vukas said that Brkić was not the one to decide who the prime minister would be, adding that the HDZ should mind its own business. "We will not comment on their intraparty elections, they do not interest us, we are addressing citizens," said Vukas.

More SDP news can be found in the Politics section.