ZAGREB, May 13 (Hina) - The Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) will ask its leader Zlatko Tomcic to open at Wednesday's meeting of the ruling coalition a debate on conclusions on the government's communication with the public, adopted last
Saturday, because it believes they include "many illogical elements", party spokeswoman Marijana Petir said.
ZAGREB, May 13 (Hina) - The Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) will ask
its leader Zlatko Tomcic to open at Wednesday's meeting of the
ruling coalition a debate on conclusions on the government's
communication with the public, adopted last Saturday, because it
believes they include "many illogical elements", party spokeswoman
Marijana Petir said. #L#
The HSS claims that the conclusions, formulated at the meeting,
considerably differ from their written form forwarded to
government ministers yesterday.
The party believes that HSS ministers are loyal to the government
and perform their duties responsibly and conscientiously and
therefore cannot accept superficial estimates from the
conclusions, Petir said.
She urged making known possible irregularities in the work of
ministries, accompanied with concrete examples and names.
The party's presidency was warned about the differences in the
government's conclusions last night by Vice-Premier Ante Simonic
and Ministers Zeljko Pecek and Bozidar Pankretic, who stated that
there had been no raised tones at Saturday's session and that there
had been no mention of possible replacement of disloyal ministers
as Premier Ivica Racan subsequently stated.
The HSS believes that a particularly contentious conclusion is the
one on the need for all media activities of the government,
ministers and ministries to be co-ordinated and conducted from one
place.
The party believes this could mean the ministers are banned from
making statements and speaking about their ministries'
achievements.
Another disputable conclusion is the one binding all ministers to
promote the government's work and banning the use of ministry
resources for party promotion, Petir says.
The HSS refutes allegations that Crafts Minister Zeljko Pecek has
violated this conclusion by advertising the New Dimension event
which he claimed had been financed by sponsors and not the state.
The HSS believes that the announced stepping up of the government
media campaign is actually the promotional campaign of Ivica Racan
and his Social Democratic Party.
The HSS will not allow Racan to "centralise the promotion of the
government's policy to his benefit", said an HSS official speaking
on condition of anonymity.
(hina) rml