ZAGREB, Nov 14 (Hina) - Political parties and independent candidates continued presenting their election platforms on Croatian Television (HTV) on Friday.
ZAGREB, Nov 14 (Hina) - Political parties and independent
candidates continued presenting their election platforms on
Croatian Television (HTV) on Friday. #L#
Presenting the platform of his list of independent candidates,
Boris Miksic said he wanted to offer his knowledge, business
experience and contacts to young people in Croatia to ensure
economic and all other aspects of development of the country.
Miksic, a Croatian American businessman heading the independent
list in constituencies nos. 1 and 7, said that if he won a seat in
parliament he would try to put the Croatian economy on its feet by
promoting small and medium-size businesses so that they would
become competitive on European and world markets.
He said he was working on establishing a partnership between the US
state of Minnesota, where he lives, and Croatia, and his next step
would be to speed up Croatia's entry into NATO.
Njegovan Starek, a candidate of the coalition of the Croatian Party
of Slavonia and Baranja (SBHS) and the Alliance of Primorje and
Gorski Kotar (PGS) representing the Czech and Slovak national
minorities, said he would advocate full respect for minority
rights, double voting rights for minorities, and the raising of
their living standards.
Similar promises were made by Nadia Poropat, a Croatian Peasant
Party (HSS) candidate representing the Italian minority in
constituency no. 12, and Borislav Graljuk, a Liberal Party (LS)
candidate in constituency no. 12. Graljuk represented the
Austrian, German, Jewish, Ukrainian and Ruthenian minorities in
the previous parliament.
The head of the independent list of candidates of the Albanian
minority in constituency no. 12, Enver Recica, said that both the
previous and present governments had badly treated the ethnic
Albanian community.
"The HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union) expelled more than 25,000
Albanians from Croatia, erased them as if they had never been here,
while the SDP's (Social Democratic Party) bureaucracy did nothing
to rectify this," Recica said, calling on the Albanians not to vote
for parties but for minority candidates.
Juraj Matic, who heads a list of independent candidates in
constituency no. 2, promised to make Croatia "a country of happy and
rich people where no one will humiliate or oppress anyone".
Karlo Pekas, an independent candidate in constituency no. 9, said
"it is not clear to me how people of Orthodox faith who have lived on
Croatian territory for centuries continue to insist they are
Serbs". He said that if he entered parliament he would advocate
unification of the Croatian people regardless of their religious
background.
Pekas went on to say that he would also support legalisation of soft
drugs and prostitution, adding that "even Catholic priests need
it".
"Knowledge and honesty are a solution for Croatia" is the election
slogan of the Social Democratic Union (SDU), whose platform was
presented by Zdravko Kojic.
Kojic said that the SDU would support workers' stock ownership and
the establishment of an agency that would help loss-making
companies to become competitive.
(hina) vm sb