HDZ: RULING COALITION HINDERS DEBATE ON PANCIC VOTE OF CONFIDENCE

ZAGREB, June 30 (Hina) - The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), Croatia's largest Opposition party, on Friday accused the ruling six-party coalition in parliament of deliberately hindering a debate on the vote of confidence in Veterans' Minister Ivica Pancic. HDZ on two occasions urged Pancic to resign due to a recent probe into military disability benefits and statements compromising the former government. HDZ requested parliament to take a position on the matter. The War Veterans' Committee of parliament's House of Representatives was to convene yesterday, but cancelled due to a lack of quorum. Without its standpoint, parliament cannot voice its position on the demand for Pancic's replacement. "I think they (the six-party coalition) deliberately boycotted the (War Veterans') Committee session to prevent parliament from discussing today the vote of confidence in Minister Pancic," said Vladimir Seks, HDZ bench president in the Lower House. The six-party coalition accused HDZ for the same hindering method when it was the ruling party, when parliament's Opposition had requested the resignation of then Interior Minister Ivan Penic. "He evidently speaks with the intention to constantly provoke, but you should ask him why he is doing it," Seks said about Minister Pancic's claims that HDZ together with Belgrade obstructed exhumations of Croats killed during last decade's war, and that criminals fearing the loss of privileges and arrests were behind recent attacks directed at him. Pancic became a thorn in HDZ's and some veterans' associations' side when he resolutely launched a probe into military disability benefits, sparing no one, some generals included. (hina) ha jn