June 9 (SeeNews) - Croatia's deputy prime minister and leader of the minor coalition partner, MOST, said on Thursday that the leader of the ruling HDZ, Tomislav Karamarko, should prove his party has secured the support of the majority of MPs or resign as deputy prime minister as otherwise a snap vote will be called.
"This is not HDZ. This is a collection of individuals who have put personal interests ahead of the state's," Bozo Petrov told a press conference.
The HDZ-led Patriotic Coalition has 59 members in Croatia's 151-seat parliament. Its current partner in the coalition government, MOST, has 19 MPs, while the largest opposition formation, the Croatia is Growing alliance, led by SDP, has 56 seats.
The crisis can be resolved in three ways: if HDZ shows it is backed by 76 MPs, if it withdraws its no-confidence motion in prime minister Tihomor Oreskovic and names a new deputy prime minister, or, if it can do neither, new elections should be called, Petrov went on to say.
On Wednesday, a group of 42 MPs of the ruling HDZ-led Patriotic Coalition filed in parliament a document listing six grounds for the dismissal of Oreskovic. The move came after Karamarko said that his party will file a no-confidence motion against the prime minister over the government's apparent dysfunction.
Petrov, however said, that neither Oreskovic nor he himself are responsible for the current stalemate, as the fault lies with Karamarko. "It all began with Karamarko," Petrov noted.
Croatia's political crisis escalated last month when MOST's ministers voted in support of a motion launched by the opposition SDP party for a no-confidence vote against Karamarko over alleged corporate interests related to business ties between his wife and a lobbyist involved in the privatisation of oil and gas firm INA.
HDZ has rejected talk of an early vote, stating that there is still time to muster a new majority.
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