Member of the centre-left opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) Josko Klisovic spoke to N1 on Thursday about the state of affairs in the SDP.

On Wednesday, long-time member of the SDP and former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Social Politics and Youth, Milanka Opacic, announced she was leaving the party, saying the SDP had become a marginal political force in the opposition.

SDP is the largest opposition party in the parliament, but its ratings have taken a nosedive in the last months amid escalating internal conflicts and calls for party leader Davor Bernardic to step down, as well as emerging populist parties eroding away its support.

“It’s sad for the SDP that long-time members are leaving one after the other, it shows that the situation is less than ideal. The latest is Milanka Opacic, before her it was Mr (Zdravko) Ronko who built the party practically from scratch in the (eastern) Pozega-Slavonija County. Some people don’t have the patience or tolerance to deal with this situation so they decide to leave, while others are still hoping that things can change in the SDP and that they will be able to restore the party to its former glory,” Klisovic said.

The party presidency and parliamentary group met this Monday in an attempt to find a solution to the internal crisis, but they were unsuccessful. Many analysts, but also party members themselves, blame party chief Bernardic for SDP’s low ratings. He, on the other hand, is refusing to step down, saying that the polling agencies, which have reported on 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).

“This situation is only prolonging the agony, we can’t present ourselves to the people. We are slowly slipping towards something similar to the political scene in Hungary or Poland where the liberal worldview is defeated, which opens up space for the extreme right to impose its rules to the society as a whole. In this society, the majority of the people belong to the centre, perhaps even the left centre,” Klisovic said.

He said he did not want to divide the SDP into factions, but into people who want what is good for the party, and those who are looking to maintain status quo, adding the only way out of the crisis was to hold a party leadership election which would bring forward new people who would then restore the voters’ trust.

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