A vice-president of the SDP club of deputies, Milanka Opacic, told reporters in parliament on Thursday that the government led by the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) had employed 6,000 civil servants in the last two and a half years. Commenting on the government's plan to employe another 4,000 civil servants, of whom most will work in the financial police, she said she feared a rerun of the situation from the 1990s, "when the HDZ had a financial army to square accounts with its political opponents".
Another vice-president of the SDP club of deputies, Slavko Linic, said the government's plan bore witness to the HDZ's policy of consumerism and non-development.
SDP official Josip Leko said more employees in the state administration would cost civil servants possible salary increases.