The intention of the HDZ's political rivals is not that this party should lose the election, but that it should disintegrate and disappear from the political scene, which should not be allowed because without a strong and stable Croatian Democratic Union Croatia cannot be stable, the ruling party's leader Jadranka Kosor told an election rally in the coastal city of Sibenik on Sunday afternoon.
Kosor urged the HDZ membership to go to the polls on December 4 and appealed to all sympathisers of the party to explain to their families and friends that Croatia was facing two roads after the election: one leading left and the other, right one leading to the European Union.
The HDZ will continue the policy that has brought about the successful completion of EU membership negotiations and reforms, while its rivals plan to remove religious education from schools, review the treaty with the Vatican and withdraw the genocide lawsuit against Serbia, Kosor said, adding that the lawsuit will not be withdrawn until all issues relating to missing persons from the 1991-1995 war have been resolved.
"Remember how it was when the SDP ran the government. They cut veterans' and families' entitlements, halved maternity leave, abolished three-year leave for mothers with twins or three and more children, as a result of which 60,000 women ended up in the street. Many couldn't return to work because they had no one to leave their children with. That is not done in a society that respects the family and the woman," Kosor said.
Kosor said that her government had done all it could regarding the economic crisis, stressing that in the last two quarters Croatia had seen GDP growth and increases in corporate profits, in the number of small businesses and in household savings. "That means that we have finally risen above the surface and we know how to manage our finances, and we don't need the IMF for that," she said.
