Several thousand people gathered in Zagreb's Victims of Fascism Square, the location of the head office of the ruling HDZ party, on Saturday demanding the government's resignation, an early election and a referendum on the election law.

The protest rally, organised by the Free Together initiative under the slogan “We are firing you”, was prompted by a major corruption scandal at the INA oil and gas company, in which five suspects defrauded the company of nearly HRK 1 billion (€133m).

The organisers said that the government’s employer is the people and that therefore the people have the right to fire it over the poor governance of the country.

Carrying banners saying “Power derives from the people and belongs to the people”, “You robbed INA again” and “High energy prices are artificially created”, protesters said they would no longer tolerate “the systematic robbery of the country’s most valuable resources” and that the government must go over corruption.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said earlier that the demonstration was organised by “a group of antivaxxers” who had organised protest rallies during the COVID crisis in 2020 and 2021.

Tina Peric of the Free Together initiative said that “the term antivaxxer is a media spin used to further divide the Croatian people.”

“People must be aware that policies pursued at the global level are also affecting the Croatian people,” she added.