Milanka Opacic, a long-time MP of the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SDP) and former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Social Politics and Youth in the 2011-2016 government led by Zoran Milanovic, announced on Wednesday she was leaving the SDP.
“In my 28 years as member of the SDP, I have given the party all my knowledge and energy. The party took leadership of the country and the people twice. As opposition, we were responsible, we were the main opposition party, and today we are unfortunately on the margins of the opposition, not at the centre, but a tag to all the other, smaller parties,” Opacic said at a press conference.
The SDP found itself in a crisis amid a series of escalating internal conflicts, caused by sinking ratings and emerging populist parties eroding away its support. The conflicts culminated in July this year, when some 90 dissatisfied party members signed an open letter demanding that party chief Davor Bernardic step down for the benefit of the SDP.
Last week, a group of 81 party members once again called on Bernardic to resign as party leader, calling his leadership “disastrous” and saying he was responsible for the major decline in party ratings.
The party presidency and parliamentary group met this Monday in an attempt to find a solution to the crisis, but they were unsuccessful.
Even with his support within the party dwindling, Bernardic refused to step down, saying after the meeting that big business and import lobbies were trying to take him down, and that the polling agencies, which have reported the party’s low ratings, but also his own growing unpopularity among voters, were working in the interest of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).
“The main reason for my leaving is the latest 4-four meeting where it became clear that neither side had the strength to resolve the crisis in the party, and that only personal interests were at play. My staying in SDP would mean I would be taking part in breaking up the party even further, and I don’t want to be a part of that anymore,” Opacic said today.
“I wish my, now former, party to recover as soon as possible, to find new people, a new vision,” she said, adding she would continue her work in the parliament as an independent MP.
The latest polls from August have shown that the SDP enjoyed the support of only 17.3 percent of the voters, which is the lowest result in the last decade.
Many analysts, but also party members themselves, blame Bernardic for the record-low ratings.
In August, MP Bojan Glavasevic left the party as well, saying in an open letter that “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.”
Formed in 1990, SDP is one of the two major political parties in Croatia, the other one being the ruling centre-right HDZ. It won the parliamentary elections twice, once in 2000, under the leadership of the late Ivica Racan, and once again in 2011, led by Racan’s successor Zoran Milanovic.
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