Addressing a press conference in Osijek, HDSSB leader Vladimir Sisljagic said that the latest press reports on the use of slush funds by the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) were just another confirmation of what the HDSSB had been warning for years -- about corruption and crime, especially within the HDZ.

Such manipulations and slush funds, in which the HDZ leadership is involved, are one of the reasons why we have called it a criminal organisation, Sisljagic said, adding that it was strange that none of the HDZ leaders knew anything about it, including the party's president Jadranka Kosor and secretary-general Ivan Jarnjak.

Sisljagic said that the minimum the government and the prime minister could do was to step down, after which parliament should be dissolved and elections called without delay.

Sisljagic said that it was not just the HDZ that engaged in suspicious transactions, but the strongest opposition party, the Social Democrats (SDP), as well, citing the case of Rijeka's Viktor Lenac shipyard. He called upon the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office and the national anti-corruption office USKOK to question the secretaries-general of the two parties, Ivan Jarnjak and Igor Dragovan, who he said would have a lot to say about corruption and crime within their respective parties.

The chairman of the HDSSB's main board, Dinko Buric, said that it would not be enough just to investigate and prosecute those responsible, but also to ensure that everything that had been stolen was returned and to ban the further political activity of the HDZ's leadership.