Member of the opposition centre-left Social Democratic Party's (SDP) presidency and parliament, Bojan Glavasevic, on Monday left the party, saying he was dissatisfied that "the SDP, such as it has become, can't give an answer to a single important question regarding Croatia's future."

His departure leaves the SDP parliamentary group at 33 deputies. In a letter to the party leader and presidency, Glavasevic said he would not return his seat in parliament to the party but complete the term to which he was elected.

SDP is the largest opposition party in the parliament, but its ratings hve been in free fall in recent months amid internal conflicts which culminated mid-July, when 90 dissatisfied SDP members signed a letter demanding that the party leader, Davor Bernardic, step down for the benefit of SDP.

Bernardic had replaced the former prime minister Zoran Milanovic as party’s leader in November 2016, following the party’s unexpectedly low result in the September 2016 early election. With populist party Zivi Zid eroding away party’s support, SDP became embroiled in increasingly escalating internal conflicts.

“The party which once nurtured ideas of universal human rights and articulated the positions of a large number of free-thinking individuals has buckled under without fulfilling its mission in modern Croatia. The SDP’s idea is extinguished and this party’s historical role is ending in an inexhaustible battle for positions,” Glavasevic wrote in the letter.

He also said the “party leader and his main adjutants (are guilty) of transforming the SDP into a complete antithesis of social democracy.”

He said the ideas which the SDP had promoted were extinguished by selfish interests of individuals who did not understand the present time, the need to listen to people and their needs, and create policies accordingly.

According to the latest polling from August, the ruling centre-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) is at 28.9 percent, while SDP’s ratings, at 17.3 percent, were lowest in the last ten years. Many analysts, but also party members themselves, blame Bernardic for the record-low ratings.

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