ZAGREB LEAVE PARTY ZAGREB, Feb 19 (Hina) - The president of the Croatian People's Party (HNS) branch in the Croatian capital, Mislav Zagar, and the head of the club of the HNS deputies in the Zagreb City Council, Kresimir Franjic,
have confirmed that they and another 12 leaders of the Zagreb branch are leaving the HNS because of "dissatisfaction with and a lack of democracy in the party".
ZAGREB, Feb 19 (Hina) - The president of the Croatian People's Party
(HNS) branch in the Croatian capital, Mislav Zagar, and the head of
the club of the HNS deputies in the Zagreb City Council, Kresimir
Franjic, have confirmed that they and another 12 leaders of the Zagreb
branch are leaving the HNS because of "dissatisfaction with and a lack
of democracy in the party".#L#
The 14 members who left the HNS held a news conference on Thursday to
explain reasons for their move.
Zagar said that one of reasons was the HNS chief Vesna Pusic's
insistence on launching procedure of expelling Franjic out of the
party after he forwarded an open letter in which he pointed the finger
at "two party robber barons" who participated in offers sent after the
invitation for bids for the construction of flats in accordance to the
so-called POS programme in Zagreb. The government-subsidized POS
programmes are also called Cacic's flats because Radimir Cacic,
another HNS leader, is seen as the initiator of the entire project.
Franjic believes that the two bidders in question should not
participated in the job primarily for moral reasons.
Zagar told the news conference that disagreement with the HNS chief
Pusic erupted after the 23 November parliamentary elections when she
asked of the city branch to take over responsibility for poor results
of the HNS roster in this electoral unit, although nobody from the
party's city committee had been put on that slate.
"On the other hand, when the HNS won 17.5 percent of the vote in
Zagreb at the local elections, she asserted that it was her success,"
Zagar said.
He went on to say that even before the November parliamentary polls
there had been some case of disagreement.
Zagar found fault with the HNS members who hold office in Zagreb city
authorities, accusing them of failing to fulfil many promises while
all efforts had been invested exclusively in the POS programme.
"Now we see that there have been 200 million reasons for this," Zagar
said.
He dismissed speculation that anybody was behind their departure from
the party, and forecast an avalanche as the party's grass roots backed
those 14 members.
Franjic said the current HNS had drifted away from its original
populism towards left-of-centre liberalism, and added that the former
14 members would try to restore the original idea od populism.
(Hina) ms