The deputy leader of the Domovinski pokret (DP) party, Mario Radic, announced on Wednesday that he would run for the party presidency in the upcoming internal party elections.

“After a series of consultations, messages and calls from people who, together with me, laid the foundations of Domovinski pokret, I have decided to take responsibility and announce my candidacy for the chairmanship of Domovinski pokret,” Radic said.

“The trust of the voters has been undermined”

He added that given the fact that Domovinski pokret is a parliamentary party and part of the governing majority, it is now more important than ever that its policies reflect its founding ideas.

“The trust of the voters has been undermined and it will be very difficult to win it back. Unfortunately, the damage has already been done,” Radic said, adding that his programme had been the same from the beginning.

Radic recalled that he was a Homeland War volunteer, adding that his father and uncle gave their lives as Homeland War volunteers and that his father’s remains have still not been found.

He called on the current party leader Ivan Penava to publicise his and his family members’ war journey.

Commenting on the accusations levelled against him on Tuesday, he said: “The biggest sin I am accused of is that I enrolled in the military flying school (of the Yugoslav Air Force) at the age of 14, and if that is such a great crime, then I call on all my critics to also condemn my deceased fellow fighters, including my good friends Marko Zivkovic, Antun Rados, Rudolf Peresin and many others who were educated at such schools, joined the Croatian Defence Forces like me and unfortunately left their lives on the altar of the fatherland.”

“The stakes are much higher”

Radic also recalled his career as an entrepreneur and realised that he had achieved everything he had wanted as a businessman. “It pains me to see what kind of people decide our lives and the processes that affect our lives,” he said.

“This is not a fight for positions, the stakes are much higher. Someone wants to destroy the dream that there is a patriotic Croatia that knows how to change things. We will never give up our dream of a better Croatia,” Radic said in a message to party members and voters.

Current party leader Ivan Penava sharply criticised the Radic-led party faction on Tuesday, saying that the Domovinski pokret needed decision-makers and not stooges, a reference to Radic.

Penava has announced that he will speak to reporters in Split on Wednesday evening.