ZAGREB, 27 March 2022 - The president of the association "Social Democrats", MP Davorko Vidović, said on Sunday that the association's mission was to bring together people sharing the values of social democracy, which, he said, were threatened more than one believed could be possible in the 21st century.

Presenting the association in Osijek, Vidović said that social democracy and its values of freedom, solidarity, equality and social equity were nowadays possibly more threatened than they had been 150 years ago.

"Not as brutally and as openly as before but they are threatened in a new, specific way, which is one of the reasons why the Social Democrats association was established", Vidović said.

He believes that Croatia needs a strong social democratic initiative, noting that the Social Democratic Party (SDP), of which he was a member, had lost contact with citizens and voters while the new platform was one of the ways to restore contact with voters.

The Social Democrats parliamentary group was formed in 2021 after a rift in the SDP group, which now has 14 members, while the Social Democrats group has 18 MPs.

Vidović said Osijek-Baranja County was the second county where a branch of the Social Democrats association would be established, that new branches would be established across the country, to be followed by the formation of a new party.

Asked by reporters if the government should be reshuffled and how, Vidović said that the extent to which some government ministers had been compromised made it difficult for the government to function and be credible, and the government should return the mandate to citizens so they can elect a government which they believe can lead the country best.

"The Prime Minister evidently has a big problem and whether he can solve it with a mass reshuffle or go to elections is up to him and his party to decide", he said.

MP Romana Nikolić, who is also the coordinator of the Social Democrats association in Osijek-Baranja County, said that Slavonia needed a major change because in the past 20 years it had barely survived disastrous demographic trends.

She said that so far around 300 former SDP members had joined the new association, of whom more than 100 in Osijek.

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