The leader of the Social Democrats, Davorko Vidovic, on Monday dismissed Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic's claim that his party is politicising the trade unions as ridiculous. He described the adoption of a government decree on wage coefficients as an unacceptable attempt to buy votes.

“The decree on salary coefficients and the wage increase are a political trick before the elections to buy the support of 240,000 citizens,” Vidovic said at a press conference in parliament.

He said the wage reform and coefficients were formulated without prior analysis, with the government ignoring the best practises and tools of other countries that are seriously committed to public administration reform.

Vidovic also rejected the allegation about the politicisation of trade unions caused by the fact that trade unionist Vilim Ribic is a member of the Social Democrats.

“He cannot use his party membership to politicise the trade unions,” he said, adding that this is another attempt to restrict democratic rights and “orbanise” Croatia.

The prime minister is the one who is politicising, Ribic said, adding that Plenkovic is doing this to explain dissatisfaction with the government decree and the wage increase to HDZ members.

Vidovic labelled Plenkovic’s statements as conspiracy theory and paranoia and said that political parties do not tell trade unions what to do, but vice versa, because trade union members are their voters.

If the trade unions were to organise a protest in the future, the Social Democrats will not take part in the organisation, but they will support it, he said.