BUDISA: CAMPAIGN BEING WAGED AGAINST HSLS

ZADAR, June 12 (Hina) - A campaign is being waged against the Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS), party president Drazen Budisa told a press conference on Tuesday in the southern Croatian town of Zadar on the occasion of the repeated elections in Zadar, Biograd and Pakostani. The HSLS is faced with several great lies which are systematically being spread. We are the only coalition party which never discussed the break-up of the ruling coalition and early parliamentary elections, Budisa said adding the HSLS was not responsible for the Istrian Democratic Assembly's (IDS) leaving the coalition. Budisa denied accusations under which the HSLS is a party whose several hundred officials allegedly got good state jobs. The truth is that after January 3, 2000 elections, only about 30 HSLS members were appointed to such duties, Budisa said, expressing expectation that Prime Minister Ivica Racan would make data on cadres public. Commenting on a statement of Mato Arlovic on the Social Democratic Party (SDP)/Croatian Peasants' Party (HSS) partnership, Budisa said Arlovic was an ideologist of the worker-peasant coalition, adding such an alliance was political anachronism, which could only set Croatia back. Stressing the HSLS never jeopardised agreements it had signed in pre-election and post-election cooperation, Budisa said the party would establish a coalition with the other four ruling parties wherever a coalition was possible. Speaking of 'Slobodna Dalmacija', the HSLS president stressed the daily today was the SDP's bulletin. He reiterated that the agreement of the three leaders of the political parties, under which a three-member non-party management should be appointed, had been violated. (hina)it sb