Karamarko was accompanied by about 20 members of his team, including Dubravka Suica, Gordan Jandrokovic, Drazen Bosnjakovic, Jasen Mesic and Davor Stier.

When asked by reporters for a comment on the accusations by some of his rivals that he had extorted the support of respectable HDZ members, Karamarko said that those were "good jokes because those who lose have the right to be angry." He said that they were drawn by the need to change the situation in the HDZ so that it could "return to its original ideas" and that Croatia could join the European Union "proudly and firmly".

When asked about the accusations by his rivals that he and former President Stjepan Mesic had tried together to topple the HDZ founder and first President of Croatia, Franjo Tudjman, Karamarko said he had never done that. "I am a Tudjmanite politically and a follower of the political doctrine and teaching of Franjo Tudjman," he said, adding that he had distanced himself from privatisation-related crime while Tudjman was president.

Karamarko denied he was using funds from the Security and Intelligence Agency (SOA) for the purposes of his election campaign. "That's yet another good joke," he said.

When asked if it was true that he was under investigation, Karamarko said that charges had been brought against him by Munir Podumljak of the non-governmental organisation Partnership for Social Development regarding his grandfather's land and his activities in a basketball club and the firm Soboli, stressing that the charges has been dropped last September, but "all this is being brought up again for the purposes of this campaign."

When asked if he had issued a death threat to an editor of Obzor magazine, which had allegedly forced her to seek asylum in Canada, Karamarko said this was another "fantastic story". "It's certainly not true and I reject such insinuations," he said.