The Monday resignation of former Economy Minister Martina Dalic is just the first to come, Index.hr reporter Ilko Cimic, who broke the story on Dalic's e-mail correspondence, said in an appearance on public broadcaster HRT's programme.

“It is very likely that this is a conflict of interest, there are some hints that provisions in the criminal code have been violated. What I do know for sure is that this definitely isn’t over yet, it only just started. At the moment, we have the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister (Dalic), and I expect Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic to follow very soon, considering that in this whole e-mail affair related to Agrokor it is certain that Plenkovic not only knew (about it), but was also responsible (for it),” Cimic said on HRT’s programme Studio 4.

Asked to comment whether the public can expect more e-mails to be published, Cimic said that “there will certainly be more e-mails, as well as articles (about them).”

Cimic said it was now up to the state attorney’s office (DORH) to assess whether any crime was committed in the e-mail correspondence between Dalic and consultants in which they discussed the drafting of the Lex Agrokor bill.

“What we can say for sure is that there was conflict of interest,” Cimic said, and added that the government showed it does not understand the basic principles of the transparency required when public officials draft bills.

“It’s just not the way to do these things… The last time we had such a case, when a law was pushed through practically over night due to a crisis situation, was at the time of transition and privatisation (in the 1990s), and we have seen the immense scale of robbery which that resulted in,” said Cimic.

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