"We are agreed that we want good election results," SDP leader Ivica Racan told the press on Mt. Medvednica overlooking Zagreb where his party held a two-day meeting.
Racan went on to say that senior party officials decided that all party members holding positions in national or local bodies of authority would set aside one-tenth of their salary to finance the election campaign.
He said that there was a possibility that election coordinators would also head party lists. The elected coordinators are Ivica Racan, Milan Bandic, Ljubo Jurcic, Zoran Milanovic, Igor Dragovan, Tonino Picula, Milanka Opacic, Zlatko Komadina, Ingrid Anticevic Marinovic and Zeljka Antunovic.
The party's team in charge of preparations for parliamentary elections will be headed by Slavko Linic and Zoran Milanovic will be in charge of coordinating daily party activities.
Racan said the SDP would spare no effort and arguments to criticise the HDZ-led government, which it believes lacks political will to deal with accumulated problems related to corruption and crime.
The SDP will present its proposals for ensuring better living standards in the country, Racan said, adding that "an honest Croatia deserves an honest government".
SDP members yesterday discussed economic indicators and voiced concern about the stagnating living standards and industrial production, and the growing public debt.
Answering a reporter's question, Racan said that he had held a working lunch with Prime Minister Ivo Sanader to help in the settlement of problems in the functioning of Pozega County authorities and to discuss lack of measures aimed at protecting Croatia without discriminating against foreign nationals buying real estate here.
The SDP leader dismissed reports about a rift in his party.
The chairman of the SDP Central Committee, Tonino Picula, said that the former parliamentary deputy and long-standing party official, Ivan Ninic, had stepped down from the Committee and left the party today because he believed that its leftist orientation was not sufficiently pronounced. The party branch in Sibenik, where Ninic comes from, had previously launched procedure against him, claiming that his statements harmed the party's reputation.