September 27 (SeeNews) - A Croatian court has found former deputy prime minister and leader of conservative HDZ party, Tomislav Karamarko, to have been in conflict of interest in relation to the sale of oil and gas company INA, according to local media reports.
The Zagreb Administrative Court upheld on Monday a decision of a Croatian parliamentary committee, which ruled that Karamarko was in conflict of interest in relation to his wife's business ties with a consultant working for Hungarian energy group MOL, who was also involved in the sale of INA.
Karamarko now has the right to lodge an appeal with the High Administrative Court, news agency Hina reported.
Croatia has been trying over the past few years to regain influence in INA, in which MOL controls a stake of just under 50%. In 2014, the Croatian government filed for international arbitration against MOL with the aim to cancel a 2009 deal that allowed MOL to take over INA's management.
The issue over Karamarko's alleged ties with the MOL adviser, Josip Petrovic, triggered a spiral of events which saw Croatia's government collapse in July.
In late May, centre-right MOST, one of the parties in the coalition government, threatened to leave, if Karamarko did not step down over his ties to Petrovic. After prime minister Tihomir Oreskovic called for the resignation of both deputies in a bid to calm the situation, Karamarko launched a no-confidence motion against him. Oreskovic lost the vote and the cabinet fell apart, but Karamarko failed to gather a new majority, paving the way to the parliament's dissolution and early elections.
The new HDZ leader, Andrej Plenkovic, is seen by analysts as the real winner of the September 11 snap vote, in which HDZ defeated the rival Social Democratic Party, SDP, by a large margin. Plenkovic, in a very short period of time, transformed the party and freed it from corruption which had settled during the reign of Karamarko, Andjelko Milardovic, director of the Croatian Institute for European and Globalization Studies, told SeeNews recently.
HDZ is currently engaging in talks with MOST on forming a new government.
In the September elections, HDZ won 61 of the 151 seats in Croatia's parliament, SDP garnered 54, MOST 13, SDP's former coalition partner, the Istrian Democratic Assembly, won three seats, Zagreb mayor Milan Bandic's party secured two seats, while the Living Wall won eight seats.
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