On Wednesday, President Zoran Milanovic once again recalled the scandals involving the ruling HDZ party and former ministers in Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic's government.

For eight years, Croatia has endured “the new normal – theft, favouritism, stealing”,” Milanovic said in a Facebook post and called on citizens to vote according to their conscience in the elections on 17 April.

“Rimac, Banozic, Butkovic, Zalac, Tolusic, Horvat, Aladrovic, Kuscevic… Everyone in their town or village knows at least one HDZ member who has stolen or criminally obtained something for which they would normally go to prison if the HDZ were not in power,” Milanovic wrote.

He added that “Plenkovic and his cronies have been systematically plundering Croatia for eight years”,” not only breaking laws but also trampling on the constitution and undermining civilised society.

Milanovic questioned where 139 million euros disappeared from the Croatian multinational oil company INA, who appointed those responsible for the theft to senior positions and who asked INA’s Hungarian co-owners to appoint Damir Skugor as director of INA’s natural gas division, insisting that all this happened under “the “patronage of Plenkovic and the HDZ”

“I will not remain silent”

Skugor, a former INA executive and HDZ party member, his father Dane, the former president of the Croatian Bar Association Josip Surjak, his business partner Goran Husic and the former director of the gas company Plinara Istocne Slavonije, Marija Ratkic, are suspected of defrauding INA of 133.3 million euros by buying gas from INA for 19.5 euros and then reselling it for up to 210 euros per megawatt hour.

“I have no finer words, I have a difficult character, but I will not remain silent, just as all the pillars of (im)morality in society have been silent for eight years, from the Constitutional Court to various commissions that monopolise the truth, to so-called analysts and ‘thinkers’ who live exclusively off public money,” the president wrote.

He added that these “(im)moral pillars modelled on Plenkovic and the HDZ” even dictate to citizens how they should vote in elections.

“You know all that! Whether you are a believer or not, whether your children have sought their fortune far away from Croatia, whether you have stayed and continue to struggle or can barely live on your pension, whether you can’t buy a flat or a house because they are too expensive. You all know how to vote on 17 April – according to your conscience, and you will not be wrong,” Milanovic told the citizens.