Countering the criticism, especially from the strongest opposition party, the Social Democrats (SDP), Sanader told the press in Zagreb on Tuesday that in its four-year rule the SDP-led coalition government had failed to do what they were now asking of his cabinet.
Sanader said the coalition government had comprised incompetent people whose main task had been obstructing one another and quarreling.
He said the SDP's four-item programme to return to power and recent meetings were attempts to downplay the fact that the party was disintegrating and that its political partners, the People's Party (HNS) and the Peasant Party (HSS), were abandoning it.
Sanader said the HDZ would like a strong centre-left rival, but added nobody fitted the bill.
Dismissing the opposition's criticism of the government, he said this year's first seven months had seen a rise in industrial output, tourism and trade, exports growing faster than imports, and positive trends in the private sector.
The PM said the privatisation process could not be stopped because of possible mistakes at lower levels, adding the alternative would be social ownership as in socialism.
He refuted Nacional weekly's allegations that Foreign Affairs and European Integration Minister Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic wanted to step down and that there existed plans to separate the foreign affairs and European integration sectors.
Asked when he would release a document showing that the recently arrested businessman Hrvoje Petrac is helping runaway General Ante Gotovina, who is wanted by the Hague war crimes tribunal, Sanader said the executive authority could not interfere in the judicial authority.
He did not answer directly when asked if the network helping Gotovina included others than Petrac and if people helping Gotovina's lawyers and family were considered the general's financiers.
Asked if he would request the arrest of Josip Jovic, the journalist who said he would not voluntarily surrender to the Hague tribunal to answer contempt of court charges, Sanader said he did not answer hypothetical questions.
He added there was a constitutional law on cooperation with the UN court and that one should check its implications on the Jovic case.