Plenković: This is an attempt at a mini-coup

After the Constitutional Court concluded that the President of the Republic of Croatia Zoran Milanović may not participate in the political activities of any political party while he is performing his duties, following an address to the public by Social Democratic Party (SDP) leader Peđa Grbin and the President of the Republic of Croatia Zoran Milanović, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković addressed the public.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenković participated today in the ceremonial opening of the Sisak-Moslavina County Health Center in Sisak, where he also commented on the current situation surrounding the parliamentary elections.

“The decision of the Constitutional Court was expected. The President of the Constitutional Court was very clear today, like everything we said, it is clear that the constitutional framework of the role of the President was exceeded, but not only good customs were directly violated, but also the Constitution itself,” said the Prime Minister.

“I think that everything that has been happening with the SDP in recent days and what Milanović has done must be described with the right words. So, this is some kind of attempt at a "mini coup d'état", abuse of institutions, complete disavowal of Mr. Grbin, whom I no longer perceive as the president of the SDP. So, in these ten days, since the Croatian Democratic Union made a decision together with our partners in the coalition that we will dissolve Parliament, where we announced the names of people leading slates for all constituencies, announced the dissolution of the Parliament on March 14, they have changed so many stories, so many records, there are no more recordings, on various sound carriers, looking at everything we heard from them,” he said.

“This whole narrative is completely empty stories, I don't know what happened to them, they either have some kind of disorder or a serious problem. So, this much empty talk, violation of the constitution, savagery, primitivism, really disavowing the entire party and that left spectrum in such a short period of time, if we had dreamed of such a scenario, we could not have made it better,” he said.

“Namely, they have now focused on the man with the worst government in the history of Croatia, the man who as president did absolutely nothing, the man who was neither anywhere, nor was invited by anyone to come anywhere, his contribution to Croatian political culture, the functioning of institutions, the economy, society and development, anything – was zero. So, compared to what we have been doing all these years, it has been eight very demanding years, years that were intertwined with all possible crises, from Agrokor, the shipyard, through the Covid-19 pandemic, two devastating earthquakes, Putin's brutal aggression against Ukraine , preservation of jobs, wage growth, pension growth... And now when people look at it realistically, then really, we after all these achievements and resisting all crises, really need some salvation, but not salvation from us, salvation from those who are carrying out a coup d'état,” he said.

Source: HRT