ZAGREB, November 27, 2019 - A former Prime Minister and SDP leader, Zoran Milanović, on Tuesday presented the State Electoral Commission (DIP) with 78,000 signatures collected by volunteers of 13 centre-left parties in support of his bid for the presidency.

"The trends are obvious. I will fight and I believe that I will win," Milanović told reporters after submitting the signatures to DIP.

Commenting on incumbent President Kolinda Grabar Kitarović, supported by the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) for her second term, Milanović accused the president of belittling "the insignia of the institute of state governance, including the presidential flag, which she respects more than I do."

"I adhere to substance, she sticks to tapestries. However, she places (the image of) that tapestry on a too sweet and nutritiously bad (birthday) cake," he said hinting to the cake Grabar-Kitarović gave Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandić for his birthday.

Milanović underscored that his duty, unlike Grabar-Kitarović's, is to restore dignity, pride, respect, decency and modesty to that office.

"Her entire (first) term in the presidency is fake and her campaign, unfortunately, is turning into ordinary village trash which Croatia does not deserve," he added.

Asked whether he believes the teachers' month-long strike will go in favour of his campaign, Milanovic responded, "you mean like the tent (case) five years ago to the current bunch in office," alluding to a protest by Croatian war veterans who set up a tent outside the War Veterans' Ministry during the term of the Milanović cabinet.

"That is where we are different. The tent was a pathogenic phenomenon in society which to this day it is not clear to me what it was aimed at except to bring down the government although I wanted to satisfy some demands," said Milanović.

(Prime Minister Andrej) Plenković and Grabar-Kitarović were part of that. Depending on what institutions they need, that is how they behave. I can express my solidarity with this strike and I that is what I am doing but nothing more than that. I'm not "a political hyena", he said adding that he did not parasitize someone else's sweat and suffering.

Milanović believes that the strike could have been avoided and that "amateurism and inexperience" primarily shown by the prime minister (Plenković), have led to this totally unnecessary excess, "that will cost him dearly."

Milanović believes that the teachers' industrial action could have been avoided by agreeing to some union demands that are realistic because when the prime minister boasts that the budget is great and that there is a lot of money, then it is normal that people who have been working for lower wages for a long time come and say that they want a bit for themselves yet the "prime minister goes and humiliates them."

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ZAGREB, November 25, 2019 - After the leader of the Reformists party, Radimir Čačić, presented signatures collected in support of Zoran Milanović's candidacy in the presidential election, Milanović's campaign headquarters decided to cease collecting signatures as it had more than necessary.

The signatures collected will be submitted to the State Electoral Commission (DIP) tomorrow already it was said.

Čačić said that they had collected 7,554 signatures and that they had planned to collect 20,000 to support Milanović who is being backed by 13 centre left parties.

On 16 November, Čačić said that as "a sign of the party's strength and the party's support," the Reformists would collect 20,000 signatures for Milanovic, 10,000 more than he is required to submit for his presidency bid.

Čačić today "accused" Orsat Miljenić, who is running Milanovic's campaign, for the smaller number of signatures collected because Miljenić decided that instead of collecting signatures for 12 days as prescribed by the electoral law, signatures were collected for only two and a half days.

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ZAGREB, November 24, 2019 - Continuing to collect signatures of support for his presidential candidacy, Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate Zoran Milanović said in Sisak on Saturday that he distanced himself from the support expressed for his presidential bid by member of parliament and HDSSB party leader Branimir Glavaš.

Milanović visited Sisak to collect signatures of support for his candidacy and when asked by reporters to comment on Glavaš's support for his presidential bid, he said that he was surprised by it.

"I would like to distance myself from his support because Glavaš is not my kind of people. I think that (his support) is a message to (Prime Minister Andrej) Plenković. The man has been indicted for grave war crimes and the court is expected to make a ruling. The biggest problem about it is that the trial is taking too long, considering that the events in question happened in Osijek in 1991. That is something that I, as the future president, will change if I can, by statements and by exerting pressure at least. The case is still under way and that's not how the judiciary should work."

Glavaš, who is standing trial for war crimes against Serb civilians in Osijek in 1991, earlier in the day supported in Osijek with his signature Milanović's candidacy, saying that his signature "is not a signature for the SDP or for drawing closer to the SDP but for Milanović as a candidate for the president of the republic", while HDSSB members would decide for themselves whose presidential bid to support.

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ZAGREB, November 22, 2019 - Zoran Milanović, who started collecting signatures on Friday morning for his candidacy for the presidential election, said in Pula that he expected support in Istria and announced a fierce and fair fight in the campaign in the build-up to the election, set for 22 December.

Answering reporters' questions about his opinion on the ongoing strike by employees in primary and secondary schools, Milanović said that he found their demands for a higher job complexity index to be absolutely justified and that none of this should have occurred.

"The demand for an increased index today is absolutely justified and this rude ignoring that has lasted for a month already, is not heading anywhere. In 2011, Croatia was a country that was financially drowning and somehow needed to be given artificial breathing. That was one period, now is another period," Milanović said referring to 2011 when he became the prime minister of the government and during his term in office the wages of education-sector staff fell because Christmas and holiday bonuses were abolished and transport costs were cut.

Milanović today described the case of the military helicopter used to transport a civilian, a suspected arms smuggler, as a dangerous scandal.

That's a dangerous scandal and says everything about the system. That was probably kept under the carpet because of the campaign and as president I will do everything within my power as the supreme commander of the armed forces for the Croatian Army to be cleansed of that sort of crime and immorality. Someone kept that on the shelf for two months hoping that the affair would be swept under the carpet," said Milanović.

He believes that the foreign policy situation is a lot worse than in 2015 when his government's term came to an end.

"Pula is the western part of Croatia. Croatia is part of the West and the thing that gives us the most strength is Croatia belonging to the western circle of civilisation with regard to values. Croatia naturally is also the Mediterranean and partially in the Balkans and our incumbent president and Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) are directly and indirectly symbolically pushing us into the Balkans," Milanović added.

He said that his policy toward Serbia, when he becomes president, will be fair, contrary to what he said Serbia's unfair policy towards Croatia.

"There is no prejudice. We need to help our neighbours for our own interests, above all. However, I don't want everything to be brought down to a policy and low level of blackmail that Croatians are always called to before an election. Croatia is not exclusively the West but it needs to look to the West, that is where values, money and opportunities are. After all that is where our people are emigrating to," he concluded.

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ZAGREB, November 15, 2019 - Presidential candidate Zoran Milanović said on Thursday that the decision to hold the presidential elections on December 22 was "thievery and a disgrace," accusing the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) of attempting to reduce the number of citizens going to the polls and to 'kill' the campaign for the second round of the election by timing it during the holiday season.

Milanović said in a Facebook post that he condemned the government's decision to hold the first round of the election on December 22, referring to the decision as "thievery and a disgrace" for three reasons.

"HDZ wants to reduce the number of people who will vote both on December 22 in the first round - when all those the HDZ has forced to emigrate to Ireland have not returned to Croatia yet - and on 5 January when more than 100,000 voters are on holiday with their families and children, who have saved for the entire year and will not be able to return to Croatia to vote in the second round," Milanović wrote.

He said that that was deliberately killing the campaign for a possible second round because it has been set for the holiday season "in an effort to hide all the emptiness of the HDZ candidate."

Milanović claimed that this deviates from the practice and rules that Jadranka Kosor too stuck to when in 2009 the first round of the election was called for the period between Christmas and New Year.

He concluded that Prime Minister Andrej Plenković's aim was to prevent citizens from choosing a better Croatia.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Thursday evening that the Social Democratic Party's presidential candidate Zoran Milanovic's statement that the decision to hold the presidential election on December 22 was "thievery and a disgrace" was actually "an interesting signal of his weakness" as a candidate.

"As far as I know, presidential elections in Croatia are regularly held ahead of the New Year. The calendar has been such since President Franjo Tuđman died in December 1999," Plenković recalled.

Since 1990, five presidential elections have been held. The third presidential elections were held on 24 January 2000 after Tuđman died on 10 December 1999.

The last elections for the head of state were held on 28 December 2014 (the first round) and 11 January 2015 (the second round) when the incumbent Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović defeated the then President Ivo Josipovic.

"This candidate has a lot of problems and is full of fear," Plenković said, predicting that the incumbent president would win the second term in office.

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ZAGREB, November 9, 2019 - The candidate for the president of Croatia of the opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) and 12 other liberal-left parties, Zoran Milanović, said at a motivational rally in Zagreb on Saturday that if elected president, he would be a supreme defender of the rights of Croatia and its citizens.

"My strongest weapon will be my speech. That is what the president has, and if he does not - nothing can help him, particularly not greater powers. I will be a sort of supreme defender of the rights of Croatia, its people and citizens, even though the current ombudswoman does her job well."

"The president can do the most by tirelessly warning about the problems of ordinary people who live off their work," Milanović told those gathered for his first big election rally, held under the slogan "An entirely normal rally."

Along with the slogan "A president with attitude", another key slogan of Milanović's campaign focuses on the term normality.

"We must create a normal state where we will wake up in a month and a half from now and say - this was worth it," Milanović said.

In his 30-minute motivational speech he also said that he would point to thievery.

"In Croatia there is no trust in the judiciary, people are exposed to power-wielders and we have been witnessing that for 30 years. As president of the republic I will warn about problems and injustices and help build trust in the system because our state has a deep meaning despite the efforts of many to devalue it. Corruption is a nice term for what people call thievery - it's greed for the property of others, for what is in the common treasury. I will work to change that. With attitude and loud warnings if necessary but not by banging my fist on the table or by forming unlawful shadow cabinets," he said, adding that he would cooperate with the government but would not exceed his powers.

In an ironic reference to President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, Milanovic said that he was not one of "those who say that they still believe in Croatia, I have always believed in it, and I also believe in the EU."

Commenting on current disputes in society, he said that antifascism "is not an ideology but resistance" and that his ideology was one aimed at protecting the weak.

Commenting on the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Milanović said that it was time for Croatians to ask themselves if they were better, happier and smarter and in what kind of country they lived.

"Our past was difficult, more difficult than the past of any other country in Europe but the wars are over. We won those wars. We owe eternal gratitude to those who fought in them, but we must move on, we must build a normal country. The state is there for us to be satisfied living in it but is that the case today? Who is responsible for that? It does not even matter. I will not point the finger at anyone, but I will not keep silent either. My most powerful weapon will be my speech," he said.

Describing his vision of the president's role in foreign policy, he said that he would do his best to protect Croatia's interests in cooperation with the government, adding that there was no need to play the role of commander in chief of the armed forces 24 hours a day.

"We now have members of the Croatian army deployed around the world, where I deeply believe they do not belong," he said.

He also noted that life should be protected with all means available but that women's rights should be protected as well.

"I see memoricide trends, trends of restriction of women's rights and I will be a staunch advocate of the worldviews and rights of the weaker ones," he said.

Milanović's presidential candidacy is for now supported by 13 political parties - the SDP, the HSS, GLAS, the IDS, the HSU, the Democrats, SNAGA, the PGS, the Reformists, the SU, the Croatian Labour Party (HL), the Medjimurje Democratic Alliance, and the Green Pula.

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ZAGREB, November 4, 2019 - Zoran Milanović, a contender in the forthcoming presidential race who is supported by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and a few more Opposition parties, said on Wednesday that the president of the republic should not at all participate in the selection and appointment of Constitutional Court judges.

Milanović said that this would be a "gross conflict of interest."

Earlier in the day, the current president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović said that she believed that the topic of enabling the head of state to have some role in the appointment of Constitutional Court judges should be discussed in a bid to make the appointment fairer.

"The president has nothing to do with that (Constitutional Court judges' appointment). It is a gross conflict of interest. The president (Grabar-Kitarović) has heard from someone else (about that) and she has probably found it opportune to repeat now that idea," Milanović told reporters while he was on a walkabout in the Dalmatian town of Trogir.

He said that he was absolutely against any expanding the presidential powers.

Milanović believes that those who need more powers ask for that only to compensate "deficiency in the character or lack of knowledge".

"Expanded powers means greater influence and more money. This is what the government has, and this should be so just as in all European democracies," said the SDP presidential candidate.

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As Novi list/Drazen Ciglenecki writes on the 25th of October, 2019, SDP's presidential candidate Zoran Milanović wants to talk to Croats who have emigrated to Ireland's second largest city in recent years, claiming that he is ''not going there to get votes''.

The Croatian presidential election campaign has, rather unsurprisingly, sunk into near-total monotony. There is nothing going on with it, there are no confrontations between candidates, which is of major interest to citizens and the media everywhere, so it is not surprising that the public has lost interest in this election race almost entirely. The current campaign is still monitored mainly at the level of the results of surveys that are published periodically. It is up to nobody else but the presidential candidates themselves to arouse more public interest in the upcoming elections.

President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović has not changed any part of her approach to the elections after announcing her official candidacy three weeks ago. She is still distanced from the campaign.

Miroslav Škoro is trying to add a certain international dimension to his candidacy, but for many people it's become more amusing to watch than anything else.

This week the singer stayed at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, where he spoke to members of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) faction about his own vision for Croatia within the European Union. The visit was organised by MEP Ruža Tomašić, who supports Škoro, and belongs to this parliamentary group to the right of the European Peoples Party (EPP).

Zoran Milanović has been paying visits to different areas in Croatia and making comments on daily political developments, and we've learned that he will soon travel to Cork, Ireland. He isn't planning on giving up on it all and moving there, but plans to talk with Croats who have moved there over the last few years.

In his election headquarters, they emphasised the fact that Milanović isn't ''going there to get votes'', since it is highly unlikely that anyone living in Cork will travel 250 kilometres to Dublin just to vote at the Croatian Embassy there. In addition, very few Croats in Ireland participate in the elections at all.

HDZ strongly attacked the former government headed by Zoran Milanović for the level of emigration from Croatia after the country officially joined the EU back in July 2013, but this worrying trend has not stopped with the change of government. The President of the Republic of Croatia was particularly engaged in this matter, warning the Government of Andrej Plenković that he must adopt demographic measures that would at least mitigate the scale of emigration.

''We stopped the military aggression, Croatia won. However, today, especially Slavonia, Croatia is at risk again. It is threatened with emigration and extinction,'' Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović once said firmly.

In her meetings with Croats living abroad, she constantly urges them to return, and she told them a month ago in Pittsburgh, "Croatia is calling you." Zoran Milanović has repeatedly spoken about this issue during the campaign, denying that people are being evicted because of a specific government. However, he also managed to find a culprit in HDZ.

''Croatia is a country where there is no equality, no equal chance of success. We see it every day and that's why people leave. They leave because they see that, even when they put in a lot of effort into something and when they play by the rules, there's no success. Unfortunately, this is a consequence of a Croatia which has been suffering under HDZ for thirty years. HDZ is a cartel, if you're with them, you'll succeed if you are not, you have no chance,'' the SDP presidential candidate said this summer.

Emigration of young people has been emerging as one of the most difficult problems in Croatia, so Milanović claims that he wants to hear directly from the people who left their homeland about what prompted them to do so, and what their chances of coming back look like.

It is estimated that about 20,000 Croats live in Ireland today, of which about 125,000 are located in Cork. Half a year ago, they wrote to the Embassy in Dublin and the Ministry of Science and Education in Croatia requesting the opening of a Croatian school in Cork, given that their children were forgetting how to speak Croatian.

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ZAGREB, October 13, 2019 - The Social Democratic Party's candidate for President of the Republic, former Prime Minister Zoran Milanović, said on Saturday that the government should raise wages for nurses and teachers, but not for the police, military and diplomats.

Answering questions from the press during a visit to the northern city of Čakovec, Milanović said that at this moment people caring for the elderly, infirm and sick and those teaching children English and mathematics were more important.

Asked to comment on the ongoing strike by primary and secondary school teachers, given that in 2015 he had called similar union demands comical, Milanovic said that the sum in question now was 400 million kuna (54 million euro) and that this government could afford it.

"I had to displease people because there was no money then. Interest on loans was seven percent and now it's one percent. A month before the parliamentary election we were dealing with loans in Swiss francs," he said.

Milanović said that the priority for him was to raise wages for nurses and teachers, but not for the police. "We are a democratic state, we have the police, but we are not a police state," he said, adding that diplomats and the military were not a priority either.

The SDP presidential candidate believes that the Croatian troops should be withdrawn from Afghanistan to avoid political and security problems. "Croatia needs a small, efficient and well-paid army," he said.

However, he said he was not against maintaining the fighter jet squadron, and that Croatia should buy fighter jets directly from the United States. "The US is our only true great ally, while Israel is not," he said.

"Americans or nothing, that's not granting preferential treatment to the US producer. Israel is a Middle East country which is our friend and which tried to flog US aircraft to us. If you are buying military equipment, buy American," Milanović concluded.

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ZAGREB, October 6, 2019 - Presidential candidate Zoran Milanović visited the coastal city of Zadar on Saturday and said that MPs could soon no longer receive privileged pensions.

The former prime minister said that unlike other presidential candidates, he would not make promises he could not keep.

He recalled that the first two measures parliament adopted in 2012 at his government's proposal was to cancel private bailiffs and privileged pensions. "That's to protect the little man."

He said the Constitutional Court quashed those measures three years later so that all those entitled to privileged pensions still received them, including all the judges in that court. "But I have happy news. According to the latest information, MPs will lose those pensions. These are the simple promises one can keep."

Asked to comment on frequent criticisms from the ruling HDZ party that under his government all projects in Zadar had stopped, Milanović said there was no proof of that.

"Some people live off work, some off lack of evidence. The motorway, for example, was built under the SDP (Social Democratic Party) government. I'm glad that Zadar is doing well and has been for the past 20 years, but Croatia is also outside Zadar, in Slavonia and places where people not only emigrate, but have no livelihood."

Milanović congratulated the people of Zadar on City Defence Day, saying it was something very serious and difficult. "One should always remember how thin the line is between freedom and slavery, life and death. Eternal gratitude to those who actively defended this area then, and they were few."

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