Croatian parliament to vote on PM's impeachment Thursday: ruling party

Croatia's biggest ruling party Democratic Union (HDZ) said on Monday a vote against Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic would be held on Thursday and it has nominated current finance minister as prime minister-designate.

The party said the parliament would vote on its motion of no confidence against Oreskovic on Thursday, but it still hoped for Oreskovic to resign himself.

Oreskovic had repeated he would not step down as all accusations against him were false. He believed he would get majority support again in parliament which approved him as prime minister five months ago.

Analysts here doubted HDZ could gather a new majority in parliamentary as the junior coalition MOST against the motion and call for resignation of HDZ's President Tomislav Karamarko from the position of first deputy prime minister. They believe without MOST it would be hard for HDZ to achieve the goal.

HDZ named Zdravko Maric, the finance minister from the party, as the candidate for the prime minister-designate.

But it was also unclear that if he could get support of 76 parliament members from a total of 151-seat assembly, analysts said.

According to laws, if the government is voted out and no one enjoys a majority support for forming a new one within 30 days, Croatian President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic has to call a early election. Enditem