Addressing reporters in Zagreb on Thursday, SDP leaders Josip Leko and Mato Arlovic said the existence of such a plan was visible from a statement by the State Secretary at the Central Office for Administration, Antun Palaric, who told Vecernji List daily today that county assemblies were dissolved because of unlawful activity, but that the government had never had a case of blocked county accounts and would have to consider future steps.
The SDP officials claim that Palaric's statement is a test balloon to see how the government should prepare for the dissolution of the county assembly and appointment of a government commissioner.
"Instead of dealing with the situation in the county, the government is now exerting political pressure to change the voters' decision and appoint its commissioner in order to hide that it shares responsibility for the county's excessive debt," Leko said.
He went on to say that the government had been aware of the unlawful borrowing of the county during the term of the former prefect Ivan Bagaric, a member of the now ruling HDZ party, but that it had done nothing to solve the problem.
"The former opposition in the County Assembly warned the government about the unlawful borrowing and spending, as did the government commissioner, who had headed the county before the elections at which the SDP came to power there," Leko said.
SDP official Arlovic said that there were no grounds for dissolving the county assembly and that by appointing a commissioner the task of settling the debt would only be transferred from the county assembly to the commissioner.
Arlovic accused the government of thwarting efforts to settle the debt and withholding its consent for County Prefect Zdravko Ronko to start talks with the Slavonska Banka on the unblocking of the county accounts.
He warned that the parliament had still not discussed a proposal by his party to discuss the situation in Pozega-Slavonski Brod County.
If the government dissolves the County Assembly, the SDP will change conclusions from its proposal and urge a discussion about confidence in the government and its responsibility for the situation in the county and internationalise the issue, Arlovic said.