The secretary-general of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), Branko Bacic, on Saturday dismissed any possibility that the HDZ presidency or any other body of the ruling party had any knowledge of what former deputy prime minister Damir Polancec claimed to have been the case, and rejected Polancec's claim that national chief of police Oliver Grbic had suggested to him that HDZ members should write anonymous letters against opposition politicians.
"I reject it and declare that it's a lie. The party's bodies never discussed that, nor did Polancec notify the president or the presidency of the party," Bacic said at a press conference.
Bacic said that towards the end of 2009, when investigations had been opened against executives and board members of public companies, some members of the HDZ presidency had asked the party's president to suspend the investigations, which he said she had rejected because she did not want to stop the fight against corruption.
When asked by a reporter which scandals he had in mind, Bacic mentioned scandals relating to the Podravka food company and the HEP power company, but would not reveal the names of those people, only saying that they had been removed from the party's membership records.
Bacic said that in the two years since he became secretary-general it had never occurred to anyone to write anonymous letters, but that they had spoken out about the criminal offences they had learned about.
"We don't hesitate to speak out what we think and we don't need any anonymous reports," Bacic said, calling for an investigation of the case regarding the main marketplace in Rijeka and of how Social Democratic Party (SDP) leader became owner of his apartment.
Commenting on a statement by Croatian People's Party (HNS) president Radimir Cacic, who said earlier in the day that the HDZ wanted to portray all politicians as being the same, Bacic said that not all politicians were the same and that the incumbent members of the HDZ presidency could rightfully say so.
"They didn't take money for work they didn't finish, like for the construction of pensioners' homes in Dubrovnik and Korcula, nor did they put their county in debt, as Cacic did with Varazdin County," Bacic said.
Bacic described the statements by Cacic, Polancec and senior Social Democratic Party (SDP) official Slavko Linic as a sign of fear that corruption investigators would knock on their doors.
HDZ presidency member Gordan Jandrokovic said that Polancec, his lawyer Anto Nobilo and Linic had agreed at a meeting in Zagreb a few days ago that Polancec would help the SDP to discredit the police and the HDZ, and the SDP, if it came to power, would in return ensure that Polancec was released from custody.
Jandrokovic said that Polancec and Linic wanted to show that the rule of law was not functioning and that the institutions investigating them had no legitimacy, because the investigations were not legal, but politically motivated.
Jandrokovic dismissed as absurd claims that the police were under the HDZ's control, adding that how it was possible then that so many HDZ officials were under investigation or convicted.
When asked by a reporter if the HDZ supported the proposal for a meeting of the National Security Council, put forward by President Ivo Josipovic, Jandrokovic said that Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor had told her associates on Friday that she would request a meeting of the Defence and National Security Council because of pressure being exerted on the police and the judiciary, but that she would do it through institutional channels and not through media.
