After the fall of a MiG fighter jet near the village of Vocin in eastern Croatia, opposition MPs on Wednesday called for Defence Minister Mario Banozic's resignation, saying that he should have resigned a long time ago "because of his incompetence".

Sandra Bencic(Green-Left Bloc) said she believes there are thousands of reasons why Minister Banozic should have already resigned, and not all of them concern morals. There are some very concrete reasons, too, so the opposition’s call for his resignation is ongoing, she said.

“As for yesterday’s MiG crash, it is fortunate that the pilots are alive. We support them, and we will insist that the system be put in order by replacing incompetent officials and appointing competent ones,” Bencic said.

She stressed that as a small country, Croatia could not expect to have everything, but “what we do have should be in working order so that the people who work for the army are not put at risk”.

“If you have a person who is in charge of the system, and it’s obvious that he doesn’t know how to lead, then it’s time to ask Prime Minister Plenkovic why he persistently appoints people who are evidently insufficiently competent for those positions,” said Bencic.

Marijan Pavlicek (right-wing Croatian Sovereignists) believes that the minister should have offered his resignation from a moral point of view because he is responsible for his department.

“The fact is that many things in the Armed Forces are not working. Thank God there were no victims, and we will see in the coming days whether anything will happen,” he said, adding that his party group supported the purchase of Rafale fighter jets because they believe that they are necessary to ensure the security of the nation and of the Armed Forces themselves.

“Some things should have been thought about much earlier. We are not blaming only this government for the bad situation in the Armed Forces. All previous governments did not react promptly either and are also to blame. As for the MiGs, maybe it’s better to ground them than wait, God forbid, for some new accident to occur,” said Pavlicek.

Daniel Spajic (right-wing DP party) said that the Armed Forces are in disarray.

“Since Banozic became minister, things have not been going well. We don’t know anything about the drone crash in Zagreb. We have problems in the VSOA intelligence service, the man allocated himself a 150-square-metre apartment, and now we have the fall of this MiG,” said Spajiv, who said he expects Banozic to resign, at least for moral reasons.

Nino Raspudic (populist conservative Most party) said he believes the minister should have resigned long ago.

“We don’t mean to beat a dead horse in this specific case of planes which are older than the pilots who fly them. There are many other more important and direct things for which he should have resigned,” said Raspudic and added that they expect the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister to answer whether we can protect our skies with current aircraft until the Rafales arrive.

“That is the first question that arises after a case like this. But the problem is generally the lack of strategy and vision in equipping and training our forces,” concluded Raspudic.