Five leading Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) officials on Wednesday pointed the finger at President Ivo Josipovic, saying that by criticising the ruling party's MPs and leadership, "encouraged by bad advisors", he overstepped his constitutional powers, unlike his predecessor Stjepan Mesic, "who abided by the Constitution to a greater extent".
"Except during campaigns, Mesic rarely commented on parliament and MPs or criticised someone based on their affiliation," HDZ vice president Vladimir Seks told press.
He said that by accusing HDZ officials of pressuring the Croatian Bar Association, Josipovic had overstepped the constitutional powers of the president of the republic and parliamentary democracy.
Seks said that such statements by the president against MPs or leaders of a party would be scandalous in a country with a long democratic tradition.
"It is not in accordance with constitutional powers if the president criticises and discusses the political activity of MPs and he is also not entitled to discuss and politicise the political activity of any party's leaders. That's beyond his powers and parliamentary democracy."
Seks said that was "an attempt to quietly revise the Constitution". Asked what had prompted the president to make such statements, he said "poor advice".
Seks said it was not his intention to enter into a conflict with the president and that his was an "ultimately well-intentioned pointing to the fact that part of the political milieu sees that as partisanship and siding with one party".
The HDZ leaders see partisanship in the fact that Josipovic did not react when officials of the Social Democratic Party, Josipovic's former party, had publicly attacked the leaders of the Interior Ministry and the police.
HDZ vice president Ivan Jarnjak reiterated that he attended last weekend's annual commemoration for Croatian WW2 victims at Bleiburg in Austria as a parliamentary envoy and that Josipovic should have criticised parliament's sponsorship of the commemorations when he was an MP.
"Nobody in this country, not even the president, has the right to question what a parliament deputy speaker is doing somewhere," he said, asking if a parliamentary envoy should ask the president's permission to go somewhere.
HDZ secretary-general Branko Bacic once again dismissed Josipovic's claim that three top HDZ officials had provoked the Croatian Bar Association's disciplinary action against attorney Anto Nobilo.
"We only warned about inappropriate pressure on Nobilo's part," he said, adding he "didn't hear any statement from Josipovic when SDP leaders attacked judicial and police leaders".
