HDZ is convincingly the strongest party, even stronger than the winning results in parliamentary and European elections. This is proven from time to time, when all accumulated strength is unleashed, as in the night from this Sunday to Monday, when a holder of a black belt in karate could not restrain himself, which his friend paid for. In this column today, such strong individuals are featured, whose presence raises the question of whether they are more often protagonists in political columns or in crime reports.
In crime reports, karateka, boxers, MMA fighters, or simply drunks and ‘men’ whose fists sometimes ‘escape’ towards their wives or children are featured. Their common denominator is not only party affiliation but also more or less prominent positions in the party hierarchy. Since this is football season and everyone is assembling their eleven for the next match, we have also chosen a dream team. Among them are the biggest stars, two mayors and two city mayors.
HDZ does not have a unified stance on such ‘mischiefs’. Decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, according to the logic of lesser harm. Although it is customary for the party to distance itself ‘from all violence’ and although some of the perpetrators have been expelled from the party, some remain in their positions to this day – in HDZ and/or in prominent positions in local government.
There are perpetrators in other parties as well, but nowhere have they occupied such high positions in the party hierarchy. Below, take a look at the dream team of HDZ’s perpetrators, in chronological order. Ten out of eleven are from the ‘Plenković era’.
The first eleven violent
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—1. Disagreements at the meeting of the HDZ Plaško Municipal Board in early 2009 regarding candidates for local elections culminated in a physical confrontation and the arrival of the police. The main actors were the president of the local HDZ Boris Slišković, who is also the president of the Municipal Council, and a member of the HDZ Municipal Board Damir Šalov, the deputy mayor of the Municipality. The police filed a misdemeanor report against Šalov.
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—2. Mara Tomašević reported her husband, the Brod-Posavina County Mayor Alojz Tomašević, for physical abuse in 2016. Tomašević was sentenced in 2020 to ten months in prison, conditionally with a probation period of two years. After the indictment was raised, he announced that he would resign, but he did not do so and was expelled from HDZ, yet he remained at the head of the County until the end of his term.
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—3. The mayor of Požega Vedran Neferović physically attacked journalist Mladen Mirković in May 2017. He pressed him against the wall and hit his head against the wall, after which he kicked him out of the city council. During this incident, Mirković almost fell down the stairs, while during the incident, employees shouted at the mayor not to do it. Mirković stated that Neferović threatened him with death along with the blows. Neferović was conditionally sentenced to ten months in prison with a probation period of two years.
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—4. One of the prominent HDZ members in Zlatar Bistrica, chicken breeder Renato Čehulić, attacked the SDP deputy mayor Dražen Mikulec after a meeting of the Municipal Council. He threatened and insulted him, holding him by the neck and choking him against the wall of the municipality. The reason was changes to the urban planning that prohibited the opening of new poultry farms, i.e., the expansion of such a business. The police arrested and detained Čehulić. HDZ downplayed everything, explaining that it was a private conflict since Čehulić and Mikulec are wedding godfathers.
5. The vice president of the Križevci HDZ Mario Miklečić slapped Dragutin Lacković, who is close to an independent political option. The head of the local HDZ declared it a duck, but Miklečić received a one-month restraining order; he is still the vice president of the Križevci branch today.
