President Milanović: I Don’t See Election Being Postponed at the Moment
The President of the Republic of Croatia and Commander in Chief of the Croatian Armed Forces Zoran Milanović attended a ceremony at which Croatian Air Force Pilot Wings insignia were presented to cadets of the 24th generation of fighter pilots at the “Pukovnik Mirko Vukušić” Barracks in Zemunik.
Asked about the procurement of new fighter jets, President Milanović said that that is the consensus in Croatian political life but when asked at what stage it was, he said, “at the beginning.”
The President did not want to comment on the move by former President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, who published a photo with her middle finger raised in the midst of reactions to Miroslav Škoro’s statement that raped women should discuss abortion with their families.
“You know very well what my views are, we’re in the campaign and I can’t comment because I always support or oppose someone’s actions. You know what my views are on these issues, the right to choose is not just a technical right, it’s a complex matter and the woman is the one to decide. I respect conservative views, but I do not agree with them. I don’t want to support or criticize anyone,” said President Milanović.
He emphasized that he did not want to support anyone with his comments. “Once the campaign is over, we will discuss this again. This is a period in which I must show restraint. After the election I will hold consultations; you will expect me to be impartial and I am protecting myself for that in this way,” the President said. When asked what he thinks about the fact that the middle finger has actually become a symbol of the reaction, President Milanović said: “The middle finger does not mean anything to me, it can be funny, it can be vulgar. It depends on the context.”
Commenting on the incident involving football fans in Vukovar, President Milanović said that the local youth was constantly being poisoned. “I am not familiar with the details from Borovo Naselje, but I know that back in 2008 there had been an agreement between the then Vukovar city authorities and representatives of the Serb minority on the official use of the minority’s Cyrillic script. A series of events in the political life of Vukovar and Croatia have resulted in a radical change of government at all levels, and, unfortunately, a group of people could not imagine their coming back to power without restoring the situation to how it was in 1991.
All paths were headed in the direction of an agreement being reached in Vukovar between the Croatian right-wing and the Serb side, and now this has been reversed. New generations of young people who had been exposed to strong indoctrination on both sides are now growing up and maturing, but this is only an indicator of the situation in the city, which is not normal,” President Milanović said, adding that he does not believe such conflicts are accidental, although he also does not see how they are linked with the election campaign.
“When I was just entering the world of politics, the situation in Vukovar looked much better than it is today. I think that one can identify by name the group of people who are responsible for this situation, and the majority is always at least equally responsible as the minority. Go to the Vukovar city cemetery and you will see the incredible harmony of the Cyrillic and Latin scripts. There is no politics here, there is only decency. It has been so for 20 years and only speaks of the farce and who stands behind it,” President Milanović underscored.
Commenting on the increase in the number of people infected with coronavirus, President Milanović said that he did not see the election being postponed as a result of this. “I don’t see a postponement at the moment and I support lifting and abolishing those rigorous measures. There is no going back; we can never go back to that sort of lockdown. That was a reaction to something new, threatening. We now know how dangerous this is and we will have to protect the elderly and chronically ill, and we knew this before,” President Milanović said.