The SDP official said the lack of freedom of citizens was a result of the HDZ's clientelism-based model of rule.

Political corruption is reflected in Transport Minister Bozidar Kalmeta and Health Minister Darko Milinovic having kept their posts due to Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor's fear of their political power, which they draw from their electoral base, Jovanovic said.

He described as political corruption the conduct of the HDZ's partners in the ruling coalition, the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) and the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), "the artificially created body of 500,000 veterans of whom at least 20 percent are fake veterans who never saw the battlefield", the poorly ordered voter registers and the oversized state administration.

Jovanovic said that aside from corruption and privatisation plunder, lack of freedom was the third biggest sin of the ruling party and its coalition partners, adding that the 320,000 unemployed and the 70,000 people who worked without pay could not be free people.

Another SDP member from Rijeka, Slavko Linic, called on the government to adopt a set of new measures to curb unemployment and insolvency growth, adding that its economic recovery programme was not yielding the desired results.

Also today, SDP member and MP Biljana Borzan told a news conference in Osijek that despite announcements about the reduction or even abolishment of some farming incentives, it had turned out that such measures would not be taken in the election year, adding that this was how the HDZ was buying the votes of farmers.

"This is a deal in which the HDZ cheaply buys votes and its purpose is to maintain the status quo in Slavonia. That situation will grow worse as long as the HDZ continues doing nothing, confident that it will buy votes cheaply in this part of the country in the election year," Borzan said.