"I never took anything for my own financial gain," Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor said at a press conference in Zagreb on Tuesday when asked by the press to what extent she had been involved in the financing of her own election campaigns.
"You can take a look at everything I own. If you want, we can open everything I have. You can come to my apartment, make an inventory of all my property, my paintings, my carpets, whatever you want, compare their value with the salaries I have received since 1995 when I entered high politics and work out whether it is the fruit of my labour or something else," Kosor told reporters at the headquarters of her party, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), after formally presenting an HDZ membership card to Interior Minister Tomislav Karamarko, who thus renewed his membership.
"All I have to say I will say to the relevant authorities. This is a press conference, not an investigation," she added, stressing that her cooperation was "absolute, full and open."
"We will certainly not allow the media to investigate and pass judgements, or other political parties in Croatia, particularly those that have already tried that several times and now want to win elections before elections," Kosor said, calling on the media to allow her party "to enter the election race on equal terms" because "what they have been doing to me, to my party and to the government over the last few months is unprecedented."
Kosor described current accusations against the HDZ as a concerted action aimed at harming its reputation before elections, due on December 4. She dismissed as insinuations media reports on the HDZ's slush funds, which said that the party was in disarray and torn with factional strife.
"It's part of a scenario whose aim is to spread chaos and distrust among the HDZ members, but we are a big, strong and historic party," Kosor said, announcing that the HDZ would hold its general convention on September 17.
When asked if she still believed she was not morally responsible for everything that had happened in the HDZ, Kosor replied: "Absolutely, that's why I'm here."
Presenting Minister Karamarko with an HDZ membership card, Kosor said she was pleased that she would be able to cooperate with him not just in the government but from now on in the party as well, in combating corruption and crime. She said that ever since she took over the government and the HDZ, she had been under pressure to sack Karamarko "probably because there were many of those who feared that we would be even tougher together."
Karamarko said he had renewed his membership in order to give fresh impetus at the party level to the fight against crime and corruption.
"The HDZ is the only party that is undergoing a catharsis, and look at how others react even to the mention of crime in their ranks," Karamarko said.
Karamarko rejected current attacks on the HDZ as an attempt at imposing collective guilt on the whole party. "If anyone is guilty, the institutions will prove that and those people will have to answer for it, but no one has the right to lay the blame on over 230,000 members of the HDZ."
