President Zoran Milanovic said on Wednesday that he will not heed the Constitutional Court's warning, that he despises warnings and that he will do what his conscience tells him.

“I despise warnings. (The Constitutional Court) can not do anything to me. They violate the constitution and pose a mortal threat to Croatian democracy. I will not comply and will do what my conscience tells me, which is to take care of the functioning of the system,” Milanovic said during a visit to the Faculty of Health Studies in Rijeka. He was commenting on the Constitutional Court’s warning that he may not stand as a candidate in the parliamentary elections on 17 April and that he may not be on the ballot paper of any party in his capacity as president.

“The constitution does not prohibit it. Declaring that something is not in the spirit of the constitution is not valid. In a liberal democracy, what is not forbidden is allowed to citizens, and I am a citizen,” he added.

Milanovic believes that the Constitutional Court’s warning is completely unfounded and that the Constitutional Court should have issued a decision or an order instead. As for the State Electoral Commission’s (DIP) request to him not to campaign directly for any participant in the upcoming parliamentary elections in his press statements, Milanovic said that the DIP said that because it had to.

No decision yet on a candidacy in the European elections

He admitted that he had been rude and angry in his comments to the Constitutional Court, adding that he would continue to be so if necessary, but that he had said everything he had wanted to.

“During her presidential campaign, when she was still president, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic attended HDZ election rallies all the time… I want them to tell me what the difference is,” he said.

“As for my public statements, I am President of the Republic and I will soon be prime minister,” Milanovic said, explaining that he would refrain from saying that he would be prime minister, but would say instead that he would soon be prime minister.

He added that he had not yet made a decision on whether he would run in the European elections.

“The rivers of justice are coming, new horses and the Third Republic, which will require constitutional changes,” he said.

Reply to Minister Butkovic

Milanovic also commented on a Facebook post by the Minister of Maritime Affairs, Transport and Infrastructure, Oleg Butkovic, who said that Milanovic was undermining the Croatian constitutional and legal order, while his close friend Milorad Dodik, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Porfirije, were preparing a new campaign against neighbouring countries.

“I am not talking about his brother’s dealings with the state, but about the well-known fact that he gave up his job as a policeman to start a business with lorries as a subcontractor in large projects of the ministry headed by his brother,” Milanovic said in reference to Butkovic.

“I regret that I did not enable my brother to do that,” he added.

In response to Butkovic’s allusion to his close relationship with Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, Milanovic replied in a Facebook post: “How is the brother’s business with lorries going, is he doing business with (road operator) Hrvatske Ceste also on the project to build the bridge to Banja Luka?”