Social Democratic Party leader Sinisa Hajdas Doncic said on Saturday that the SDP was the only left party in Croatia, likening it to famous Yugoslav-era boxer Mate Parlov, who, he said, was underestimated but won matches with artfulness and courage.

“The SDP is united in the idea of social democracy which it will never abandon and it is the only left party in Croatia,” Hajdas Doncic said at the constituent session of the SDP Main Committee in Zagreb.

“We are aware of the nepotism and clientelism, we are aware that the government does not care about the high prices in shops or about Croatian citizens but only about the interests of their party members,” he said in a reference to the ruling HDZ party.

“I’m deeply aware that there are two Croatias, one of which fights for survival, for a job and a place to live, for their children and parents. I’m aware that pensioners have a hard time… surviving. I’m aware that parents, when they point to problems in the education system, are called by the ruling caste ‘log revolutionaries’ wishing to topple the government,” he said in a reference to the term used by Science and Education Minister Radovan Fuchs for parents from Zagreb who recently refused to send their children to school for a couple of days after a 10-year boy with a history of problematic behaviour was transferred to their school from another Zagreb school, which had been his second school transfer.

The term used by the minister had been used in the early 1990s for ethnic Serb rebels.

“People just want to live in a normal country, nothing more and nothing less,” Hajdas Doncic said.

“As a right party, the HDZ continues to stoke base emotions, buying certain structures in the Croatian society with clientelism or generous donations from the state budget, and the SDP is the only party that can counter that,” he said.

The SDP will be the voice of those who live on the margins of society, who feel the social injustice, he said, adding that they did not want to live in a society where office-holders charged with criminal offences are warned in advance to step down from their positions.

“You have probably heard the terrible statement by the Jadrolinija director – that he regrets that the deaths of the three seafarers have overshadowed the company’s good business results. Unfortunately, that is the society we live in today, and I don’t want to live in such a society,” the SDP chief said.

“I want to live in a society of solidarity, justice and equality,” he said, adding that the SDP mayors, county heads, members of the European Parliament and Croatian parliament are proof that that is possible.