Price Rising in Sabor

When Mate Granić (Mate Granic) used to dream about being elected to Sabor more than a year ago, price of Sabor seat was apparently 100,000 €. In the meantime, the price of a Sabor seat has dramatically increased, as current prime minister Ivo Sanader can atest.

Few days ago SDSS has finally jumped from the fence and announced that its three Sabor representatives are going to "listen to the will of the public" and vote for the removal of Croatian foreign minister Miomir Žužul (Miomir Zuzul). This is 2 votes short of necessary 77 vote majority.

So, the decision lies in 3-men delegation of HSU, Croatia's pensioners' party. Leader of that party, created with traditionally left-wing social agenda, have surprised many with their decision to help right-wing HDZ to create governing coalition one year ago. That decision seems to be wise right now when they are able to extract all kinds of concessions from embattled Sanader. So far they refused to tell whether they would support Žužul's removal or not. Yet, there are some speculations about vote depending on whether Sanader can find extra 1 billion HRK (131 million €) for pensions in next year's budget. Sanader is, therefore, between the proverbial rock and the hard place – if he doesn't pay, he risks political crisis and parliamentary elections he could easily lose; if he pays, he would anger IMF and World Bank.

In any case, a single Sabor seat is now worth cca. 44 million € - 440 times more than one year ago.