President Zoran Milanovic said on Thursday that Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic was "the protector of corruption in Croatia" and that "the worst corruption octopus in the history of the Croatian state" had emerged under Plenkovic's government.

Milanovic made his comments in a Facebook video in which he commented on Plenkovic’s statement yesterday that he did not know who the AP was that was mentioned in the texts exchanged between former government officials. “But we all know who AP is. Andrej Plenkovic,” he said.

There is no ministry, no state-owned company and no public institution where there has not been theft, favouritism or at least fraud, Milanovic added.

Milanovic said that Plenkovic was a usurper who had occupied almost all independent institutions in the country and now wanted to occupy the State Attorney’s office at all costs. “To prevent investigations against his ministers and closest confidants. That’s why he appointed the party boy Ivan Turudic as attorney general.”

Milanovic said that Plenkovic was unconvincingly and unfairly assuring people that they were living well and that he was impoverishing pensioners and letting young families emigrate “because there are jobs and money only for HDZ party members and their friends.”

He reiterated that Plenkovic had never opposed the Brussels bureaucrats. “He has never really cared about the interests of Croatia and the Croatian people, but only about personal interests and his own career.”

Croats know that Plenkovic has done many more bad and harmful things, but they can change that in the upcoming parliamentary election, Milanovic said.