For the first time in history, the Croatian Parliament will have three representatives from the Croatian Pensioners Party (HSU) which was founded in 1996. According to the statement by the president of the party, Vladimir Jordan, they are extremely satisfied with the election results because pensioners have finally received their spokesman. The question that HSU will most likely ask after the elections will be who they will enter a coalition with. However, the president of the party claims how a strong coalition with any member of Parliament is not being considered and that the final standpoint on the coalition will be taken after the Central Committee is formed.

“No political party has even congratulated us, and no one has invited us to join a coalition. The pensioners in Slovenia, who are gathered in DESUS, congratulated us: they have been in the Slovenian Parliament for years. They only have an advisory function, but Slovenia is different to Croatia because they have not erased an entire generation from public and political life”, said Jordan, explaining how HSU is most likely dependant on a method of solving concrete questions in its programs which will be found on the list of issues in the next Parliamentary seating.

“The program is the only important factor to us: we are not concerned with who will be left wing or who will be right wing. The coalition that we supported in the past elections, as well as other political parties in Croatia, ignored the pensioners and all of our proposals; this could be seen as the deserved punishment for that form of ignorant relations. If we consider the example of the Law on Transportation Safety, we proposed an age limit of 75 years instead of 65. That has been an issue for one and a half years and it will be one of the first questions that we will ask in Parliament”, said Jordan, warning that the party’s most important economic program will be the goal of creating a production growth rate of 8%, while at the same time decreasing the unemployment level.

“This generation believes that it is time to say enough is enough. Croatian integrity is being questioned- everything is being sold and we will end up being waiters in our own society. Over the past 12 years, we have worked on selling companies while workers are losing their jobs: there is now an attempt to legalize this activity with political amnesty. HSU will not agree to that. If HDZ’s motto is ‘Pokrenimo Hrvatska (Turn Croatia Around)’, ours will be ‘Sagradimo Hrvatska (Develop Croatia)’. We will only be able to reform the remaining sectors, such as education or health care, with a good economic program. That is impossible to do without money. That is why we require a privatization program which would be in the interest of Croatia’s development. We cannot do it alone, but we can insist on it and find partners to help us realize it”, was the opinion of the president of HSU, Vladimir Jordan. I remind you that pensioners, even though they have been forgotten, have experience that could help young people.

“We want a new method of understanding politics because the current system is doing too little for the people and too much for the government. We want our children to be able to find jobs because then we can expect a deserving pension,” said Jordan.

Vladimir Jordan was born in 1940 in Zagreb and received his Master’s at the University of Law in Zagreb. He worked as an economic expert, and from 1970 to 1990 he was one of the leading members for economic relations with foreign countries. Josip Sudac, the HSU representative who won a mandate in the III election district, was born in Varaždin in 1936. He is a lawyer, and received his doctorate in economic science. Before entering retirement, he led the trade sector at the Croatian Chamber of Commerce.

The mandate in the IV election district was won over by Dragutin Pukleš, an economist born in 1936 in Donji Miholjac. Before retirement, he worked as the director of the financial sector at the then SDK, known today as FINA. Silvano Hrelja won the mandate in the VIII election district. He was born in 1958 in Hreljina and is currently employed in the Association of Independent Unions of Croatia as the commissioner for the Istrian County.