SDP REACTS TO HSP'S ACCUSATIONS ON CRO TELEVISION

ZAGREB, Dec 28 (Hina) - The Social Democratic Party (SDP) on Wednesday forwarded a letter to the Ethics Commission stressing that during the electoral promotional campaign, candidates of the Croatian Party of Rights (HSP) and its president Ante Djapic made untrue statements about the SDP during a Croatian television broadcast on December 28. The SDP believes that the statements aimed at causing damage to the party, for it is a competition to the HSP at the elections. Representatives of the HSP established that the Government of National Salvation, which included the SDP, passed the law on ownership transformation in order to make the SDP partially responsible for disastrously conducted transformation and the privatisation in Croatia. The SDP, however, stressed that was not true, adding that the law on transformation was passed in April of 1991, namely earlier than the Government of National Salvation, which included the SDP, was convened. Further on, the SDP stressed it was satisfied with the assessments by the Ethics Commission that HSP representatives made false accusations and therefore violated ethic and democratic principles in the elections. The SDP also reminded the Ethics Commission that it has not yet express its standpoint on the SDP proposal to assess whether HTV editor-in-chief Obrad Kosovac violated professional and legal regulations on journalists' independence particularly during the electoral promotion by his membership in the Croatian Democratic Union's Electoral headquarters. (hina) it