"We want to know if the Social Democratic Party (SDP) really intends to abolish that constituency or are Arlovic's statements only the continuation of his crusade against ethnic minorities," Radin said, adding that the direct election of representatives of ethnic minorities was a guarantee of the autonomy of their political work.
Radin believes that Arlovic's proposal is an attempt to control ethnic minorities and ideologise their ethnic background.
"Unfortunately, every struggle for a civic Croatia starts and ends with stripping minorities of their rights. Politically equating ethnic minorities and the majority people and abolishing positive discrimination is the last and not the first step in the establishment of a modern Croatia," Radin said, adding that he expected SDP leader Zoran Milanovic to state his position on the matter.
MP Milorad Pupovac called Arlovic's statement unfair, inappropriate and unacceptable, saying that minority deputies in the Croatian parliament served as a mechanism to enhance political culture and tolerance in the parliament.
"Arlovic's statement that in the political sense, we should all be Croats is actually a call for political assimilation. Does that mean that the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS), of which I am a member, must not exist because it is not a Croat party," Pupovac said, adding that this was contrary to the policy of multiculturalism and multiethnicity.
Pupovac believes that it is very important for the SDP to state its position on the matter the more so as many SDP members have announced their support for double voting rights for ethnic minorities.
Answering a reporter's question, Pupovac said that if the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) was to lean to the right to the degree that it would form a coalition with the Party of Rights (HSP), it would definitely jeopardise the HDZ's cooperation with ethnic minorities.