Date formed 22 January 2016 Head of government Tihomir Orešković | Date dissolved 19 October 2016 No. of ministers 21 | |
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Deputy head of government Tomislav Karamarko (Jan-Jun 2016)
Božo Petrov (Jan-Oct 2016) Head of state Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović | ||
The Cabinet of Prime Minister Tihomir Orešković was the government cabinet of Croatia from 22 January until 19 October 2016. It was the 13th cabinet of Croatia, formed following the November 2015 election. The negotiation process leading to its formation was the longest in Croatian history, totaling at a record 76 days. On 16 June 2016, Orešković's government lost a motion of no confidence in the Parliament with 125 MPs voting for, 15 against and 2 abstaining. As a result the Orešković cabinet served in an acting capacity until a new government took office after the 2016 election.
Contents
It was the first Croatian cabinet to be headed by a non-partisan Prime Minister, as well as having the largest number on non-partisan ministers (6). The remaining cabinet members came from two parties: the Croatian Democratic Union and Bridge of Independent Lists.
The Orešković cabinet was dubbed "Tim's Team" by the Croatian media.
History
The first change in the cabinet occurred just 6 days into its term when Minister of Veterans' Affairs Mijo Crnoja resigned on 28 January 2016 over a controversy involving him listing an abandoned wooden structure in Samobor as his place of residence. After holding lengthy meetings behind closed doors during a period of several days, the Prime Minister and his two Deputies agreed to lend their support to Crnoja's case and his claimed innocence in the affair, however Crnoja himself tended his resignation stating that he did not wish to be a burden on the new government. He became the only member of Orešković's cabinet to have never attended a cabinet meeting, and made history as the shortest-ever serving member of a post-independence cabinet in Croatia. After his resignation, Vesna Nađ who had served as Deputy Minister of Veterans' Affairs in the Cabinet of Zoran Milanović became interim minister, creating the situation where a member of the opposition centre-left Social Democratic Party held office in a government led by the centre-right. Furthermore, the ministerial post remained vacant for almost two months due to the coalition parties failing to agree on a mutual candidate. At the end of a lengthy negotiation process they finally agreed on Tomo Medved of the HDZ as Crnoja's successor and the new minister.
The first 100 days the cabinet had been marked by constant disagreements and feuds within the ruling Patriotic Coalition-MOST coalition. Namely, many of the smaller parties of the Patriotic Coalition had expressed dissatisfaction with the ineffectiveness of the government, as well as the mutual blocking mechanism present between members of the Patriotic Coalition and MOST, and the increasing rivalry between the chairmen of these parties: Tomislav Karamarko and Božo Petrov. In this way MOST had been accused of presenting an ″opposition within the government″ and was seen as slow to make decisions on mutual proposals because of its inability to reach a consensus among its own members. The pace of promised reforms was also stained and slowed by the feud within the ruling coalition, as well as the Prime Minister's seemingly subordinate status and lack of political authority in comparison to Tomislav Karamarko and to a lesser extent Božo Petrov. In addition the government had managed to present only a handful of bills to Parliament, due to an inability to reach the required quota for three weeks, mostly owing to lack of accord between the coalition parties.
On 18 May 2016 the opposition Social Democratic Party initiated a motion of no confidence against Tomislav Karamarko after Nacional weekly published secret contracts on business cooperation of his wife Ana Šarić and Josip Petrović, special adviser and lobbyist of the MOL Group, a Hungarian oil corporation that gained control of Croatia's national oil company INA through a corruption scandal involving former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader. MOST leader and Deputy Prime Minister Božo Petrov stated on 26 May 2016 that his party would vote for Karamarko's removal from the government, thereby raising the possibility of early elections or the installment of a new parliamentary majority by the opposition. Motion of no confidence against Karamarko was supposed to take place on June 16, but he resigned the previous day, following the verdict of the Commission for the Prevention of Conflict of Interest which stipulated that Karamarko was indeed in conflict of interest when he was expressing suggestions that Croatia should come out of arbitration procedure with MOL. A motion of no confidence against the Prime Minister was held on June 16, 2016, leading to the fall of the entire cabinet.
Party breakdown
Party breakdown of cabinet ministers: