Croatia Sackings Make Fresh Elections Lkely, Expert Says

After Croatia's Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic axed three ministers from the junior government party, the Bridge of Independent Lists, MOST, Croatia appear set for political instability and even new elections, possibly in September, a leading politica. analyst told BIRN.

Zarko Puhovski told BIRN that early elections were not likely. "There is certainly a 50 per cent chance of early elections," he said.

Plenkovic axed Interior Minister Vlaho Orepic, Justice Minister Ante Sprlje and Environment Protection and Energy Minister Slaven Dobrovic on Thursday.

They had refused to support Finance Minister Zdravko Maric when he was awaiting a non-confidence vote in parliament on Wednesday.

On Friday, Plenkovic removed the last MOST minister - State Administration Minister and Vice Prime Minister Ivan Kovacic - as well as all of MOST's state secretaries.

Plenkovic's party, the senior party in government, the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, also claimed it had collected signatures of 79 of 151 MPs in total supporting the removal of MOST's leader, Bozo Petrov, as chair of parliament.

Plenkovic claimed that without MOST, the HDZ still has a majority in parliament. However, without the 15 MOST MPs, their majority is slimmer.

Puhovski explained that although Plenkovic and the HDZ have a good chance of doing well in early elections, "they have lesser chances than they would have had in early April, when early elections could have been scheduled along with the [May 21] local elections".

"Now, we're looking at some kind of 'survival' in the coming months, trying to form a [parliamentary] majority, followed by few weeks in June in which they [the HDZ] look at what kind of majority they can form in the longer term - if not, we're looking...