Ivana Kekin, the presidential candidate of the Mozemo party, said at the press conference in Zagreb on Friday that they are trying to silence her because she exposed the looting of the healthcare system, as she said.

Kekin said that in recent days a campaign of intimidation and disruption has been waged against her family and her party, linking them to collusion between the criminal underworld and the political authorities.

“The fact that I am a presidential candidate and that during this time the Minister of Health was arrested for colluding with criminal networks has brought the issue of looting the health system to the forefront. Now they want to silence me, divert attention and force me to refute nonsense and lies on a daily basis,” Kekin said.

She said such efforts will not silence her. “They can behave however they want, but this obstruction will not stop me from defending the public good and the healthcare system.”

Allegations of corruption

Following the arrest of former health minister Vili Beros and the exposure of corruption in the healthcare system, which she linked to collusion between organised crime and senior government officials, Kekin described the situation as a glaring problem for the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the government led by Andrej Plenkovic.

She said the attacks against her were part of a coordinated operation aimed not only at her presidential campaign, but also at discrediting her revelations about the looting of the healthcare system orchestrated by links between the government and criminal networks.

As an example, Kekin cited the case of the private hospital Medikol, owned by the Rajkovic family. She said that since 2007, the hospital has received 1.3 billion kuna (173.3 million euros) through contracts with the Croatian Health Insurance Fund, while the state has failed to allocate 60 million kuna (8 million euros) for the purchase of five PET/CT scanners for public hospitals.

“What makes the Rajkovic family so powerful? How can they have so much influence over the country that it is not able to buy PET/CT scanners?” Kekin asked.

“I perceived this deception as a threat”

When asked if she feared legal action from Medikol, Kekin replied, “I do not care. My main focus is on the interests of the citizens of this country.”

She also reiterated that she would not apologise to Nikica Jelavic, who had demanded an apology after being called a “mafioso”.

Kekin said she would no longer comment on the situation, which has become a focal point of the presidential campaign after a controversial meeting between her husband and Jelavic under the impression that Jelavic was a football player.

“I perceived this deception as a threat and therefore filed a complaint with the police. No explicit threats were registered, so we did not apply for additional protection,” Kekin explained about the incident.

She also criticised State Attorney-General Ivan Turudic’s comment on her case, in which he suggested that there might be more to the story. Kekin described the comment as “abnormal”.