The expelled SDP members are Main Committee members Jelena PavicicVukicevic, who is also Deputy Zagreb Mayor, and Greta Augustinovic Pavicic,members of the Executive Committee of the SDP organisation in Zagreb - DavorJelavic, Mirjana Keleminec, Slobodan Ljubicic, Slavko Kojic and Andreja Kralj,members of the SDP City Committee Petrunjela Smetana, Ladislav Soldat, IvanSikic, Ljiljana Velnic, Zdravka Vuckovac and Zoran Horvat, as well as a memberof the Presidency of the SDP Social Democratic Women's Forum, Ljiljana Ivkovic.

At the proposal of the SDP Presidency, the Main Committee dissolved three ofthe party's 17 local branches in Zagreb (Novi Zagreb - Zapad, Brezovica andSesvete), and appointed commissioners who were given one month to re-registerparty membership - all of the 2,500 members of those branches will be removedfrom party membership and the commissioners are to assess which of them canjoin the party again.

The Main Committee said the said branches were being dissolved because only50 percent of their members supported the SDP's presidential candidate, nowPresident-elect Ivo Josipovic, and because their leaders took part in Bandic'spresidential campaign.

The Main Committee dissolved for the same reason senior bodies of the SDPbranches in Gornja Dubrava, Podsljeme and Pescenica.

Speaking to reporters after the session of the Main Committee, SDP leaderZoran Milanovic said the said party members and branches had breached the SDPstatute and openly worked against the party.

He stressed that one could not speak of political purges, because inexpelling the said members the party leadership had taken into account theirfunction in the party and did not punish anyone for stating their opinion,however, those who joined the party of their own free will had to abide byparty rules.

Asked why Ljubo Jurcic, who had offered Bandic his advisory services if hewas elected President, had not been expelled, Milanovic said that such and someother statements had not harmed the party.

The SDP leader said the SDP was now turning to important issues of nationalimportance, reiterating his invitation to the Prime Minister and leader of theruling HDZ party, Jadranka Kosor, to set a date and place for a meeting on thecurrent burning issues and ways to solve them.

"My invitation to the PM still stands and it is up to her to set a dateand place, because she is in a position to do so. I will be flexible," hesaid.

Milanovic dismissed media claims that the SDP was advocating, through its MPSlavko Linic, a big coalition with the HDZ, stressing that Linic was not sayinganything that he himself was not saying - that the SDP and the entire countryhad lived to see concrete government measures for economic recovery.

"Headlines about a big coalition are grossly exaggerated," hesaid.

The SDP Main Committee also decided to repeat the procedure for thenomination of candidates for leading positions in the SDP Zagreb organisation.Last year, Ivo Jelusic, Zeljka Antunovic and Davor Bernardic announced theircandidacies for president of the SDP organisation in Zagreb, which is theparty's biggest organisation in the country.