The Croatian Reform Party of Montenegro (HRS) is a new political party on the Montenegrin political scene.
HRS announced that the new party was founded "on the proposal of a significant number of citizens, members of the Croatian autochthonous minority, with the basic goal of restoring trust in their political representatives and the original civic concept".
HRS will be led by Marija Vučinović, Minister without Portfolio in the Government of Montenegro and Radovan-Rade Marić, Director of Tivat Airport.
Vučinović was for many years the president of the only political party of Croats in Montenegro - the Croatian Civic Initiative, but she was removed from that position a year and a half ago after a conflict with the current president of HGI Andrijan Vuksanović and an influential member of the Presidency of that party and the head of the Croatian National Council of Montenegro Zvonimir Deković.
"HRS gathered a significant circle of intellectuals from Croatia, as well as members of other nations who stand for the pride and dignity of all citizens of independent, democratic and European Montenegro. The fact that in less than a week, almost 250 citizens have given their support to the HRS with their certified signatures, while over 300 citizens have so far given their support to the party's electoral list, says the HRS, noting that all The necessary documentation for the registration of the party has been duly submitted in accordance with the law and legal deadlines to the Ministry of Public Administration "and we expect a decision on the registration."
The Croatian Reform Party of Montenegro (HRS) will participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections, scheduled for August 30.
They will fight for one so-called a guaranteed mandate that goes to a political representative of the Croatian national minority, and for which a special census of only 0,3 percent of the number of voters who went to the polls is valid.
In this, HRS will have HGI as its competitor, which until now has enjoyed a sort of political monopoly in representing the interests of Croats living in Montenegro.
HGI spins the public about the support of official Zagreb
That things have gone too far when it comes to the survival of parties on the political scene that aspire to a guaranteed "Croatian" mandate in the Parliament of Montenegro is evidenced by the action of the HGI, whose leaders are on an official visit to Zagreb.
After the meeting of the president and vice-president of HGI, Adrijan Vuksanović and Ilija Janović, and the member of the HGI Presidency, Tanja Grabić, with the President of the Republic of Croatia, Zoran Milanović (SDP), they officially announced that "Milanović supported HGI".
"President Zoran Milanović expressed his full support for Croatia's citizens' initiative before the election cycle, which is scheduled for August 30," reads, among other things, the statement of HGI published on the portal of the party's Dux radio.
However, the Croatian president, whose closest collaborators were informed about the formation of a new Croatian party in Montenegro immediately before Milanović's meeting with Vuksanović in Montenegro, did not explicitly support either HGI or that new party, instead Milanović left it up to the voters within the Croatian national minorities in Montenegro.
"At the meeting, President Milanović pointed out that it is important that the Croatian community also in the future convocation of the Parliament of Montenegro have its own representative who was elected by the will of the Croats in Montenegro," the office of the President of the Republic of Croatia officially announced.
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