Group of 81 SDP members ask Bernardic to step down as leader

The disgruntled SDP members called on the SDP Main Committee to make the relevant decisions at its next session and on all party members to state their views and support their demands through party bodies.

They demanded that elections for new party bodies be held by the end of the year and that all sanctions imposed on party members who have spoken critically about the situation in the SDP be withdrawn.

SDP is the largest opposition party in the parliament, but its ratings have 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.

Attending today's meeting, which was held in Kamanje (about 70 kilometres southwest of Zagreb, close to the Slovenian border), were four suspended members of the SDP Presidency - Sinisa Hajdas Doncic, Pedja Grbin, Mihael Zmajlovic and Vedran Babic -  as well as MEP Biljana Borzan, party whip Arsen Bauk, and other prominent members of the SDP.

Grbin, Hajdas-Doncic, Zmajlovic, and Babic had been suspended in July after the letter calling on Bernardic to resign was published. They had lost the right to perform their party duties or exercise their rights as members.

“Not only is criticising Davor Bernardic’s party leadership not a violation of our party statute, it is, like in every other democracy in the world, allowed and good, because it can only contribute to our quality,” the four suspended members had said after their suspension was upheld this week by the party.

Signatories of the request that Bernadic step down are joined by many party members who served as city mayors or county heats, Hajdas-Doncic told reporters after the meeting.

He said that with a new leadership, the SDP could again become a progressive political party and that social changes were possible if the SDP changed.

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.

Follow N1 via mobile apps for Android | iPhone/iPad | Windows| and social media on Twitter | Facebook.