June 6 (SeeNews) - Croatia's first deputy prime minister and leader of the conservative HDZ party, Tomislav Karamarko, rejected calls by prime minister Tihomir Oreskovic to resign and said Oreskovic no longer has HDZ's support.
"800,000 Croatian citizens voted for the Patriotic Coalition, while 76 MPs backed Oreskovic. Mr. Oreskovic no longer enjoys our confidence after the salto mortale he did," Karamarko said during a press conference held on Friday.
Earlier on Friday, Oreskovic called on his two deputies - Karamarko and Bozo Petrov of MOST - to step down as their conflicts had become too great a burden for the country.
Oreskovic, a businessman, was appointed prime minister of a coalition government of HDZ and MOST after general elections last year. Tension between the ruling parties increased last month when all MOST ministers voted in support of a motion by the opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) for a no-confidence vote against Karamarko over alleged conflict of interest.
Karamarko noted that Croatia will either face a cabinet reshuffle or new elections, adding that HDZ is ready for both scenarios but not with MOST as a partner.
As a coalition partner, MOST's behavior has been out of line, he noted. "HDZ has made numerous concessions to MOST and cannot allow all of its efforts to be rendered meaningless by someone whose policies are based on tabloids," he commented.
For his part, Petrov said MOST is opposed to a cabinet reshuffle. "TK bears political responsibility. As for the reshuffle, we do not want it. Croatia is in MOST's heart and not in its pocket," he said on Twitter.
Last month, SDP issued a statement saying that the party will seek Karamarko's impeachment, accusing him of putting the interests of Hungarian oil company MOL ahead of the nation's. The SDP claims that a company owned by Karamarko's wife had received payments for consultation services from a lobbyist of Hungary's MOL, who was also involved in the sale of Croatian oil and gas company INA.
Croatia has been trying over the past few years to regain influence in local oil and gas company INA, where the Hungarians control just under 50%. In 2014 the country's government filed for international arbitration against MOL with the aim to cancel a 2009 deal that allowed MOL to take over INA's management.
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