I listened tonight to Dragan Primorac’s program presentation and ask should the dijaspora vote for him?
A full hall of HDZ supporters patriotically greeted Dragan Primorac waving their little Croatian flags. Dragan tonight presented his program to the Croatian world.
Dragan didn’t disappoint them, giving the patriotic crowd five minutes of the song Final Countdown by Europe played like a scratched record on repeat. Why did he choose a song by Europe and not a Croatian song? Maybe there is a subliminal message there to be found as he stood next to the EU man himself, Andrej Plenković, to be photographed as the music FINALLY died down.
Plenkovic grabbed the microphone first as choreographed fake cheers of pobjeda were to be heard in the public, as per usual HDZ gathering protocol. The usual, we are so good and Milanović so bad rhetoric was to be heard from Plenković. When the “moja usta hvalite me” speech was finally over, 21 minutes into the gathering, the crowd once again erupted to choreographed fake cheers of pobjeda.
Twenty two minutes in, with the Final countdown once again playing, we finally get to hear the man who was supposed to present his program. He waved and finger pointed at the crowd as the music played. How much longer does the Croatian voter have to put up with these political circus shows, I don’t know. He opened the speech unconvincingly lying to the crowd that he has never felt so much love in his life from the hall full of government workers that were forced by HDZ to come to this gathering.
Twenty four minutes in and still no mention of the program, Primorac very unconvincingly opened the speech and the crowd once again did their choreographed cheers of Hrvatksa. You could tell that these government workers didn’t believe in the lie they couldn’t hide it, this guy was not Presidential material. It all felt so artificial and forced.
Dragan was very unconvincing in rallying the crowd, he just didn’t have that leadership charisma and the crowd returned to him the faked enthusiastic cheers he deserved.
You can without a doubt fast forward the video if you watch. The first 34 minutes were an introductory circus show with no real program meat.
Thirty four mintues in Primorac promises to fight corruption. The room filled with supporters from the most corrupt political party in Croatia stared at him with bored faces. They knew this was all hot air. I could just imagine Vladimir šeks smirking how easily the public is fooled. Primorac was right corruption had its Name and Surname and it was HDZ pure and simple. He just couldn’t say it to their faces.
He said he would push for a more efficent judicial system, simpler and less costly. A stronger army with more tax payer paid expensive military equipment. He attacked Milanović for using the expensive military helicopter for travel as the overpaid and underworked HDZ workers clapped at his remarks.
More attacks on Milanovic and useless hot air promises followed. He continued to make many more pledges that he couldn’t fulfill anyway as president.
Fifty two minutes in he says that he will encourage Croatians from the dijaspora to return as he himself has lived in the dijaspora for 30 years. He said how much Croatians in the dijaspora loved Croatia and even dared to say they love it more than Croatians who live here. He said he would do everything so that Croatians in Croatia and those in the dijaspora breathe as one.
I wish I could believe him, I really do. However, in 1 hour and 11 minutes of his show he only spends 1 minute talking about this issue. He spent probably over 5 minutes just attacking Milanović over the one hour. Introductory thirty four minutes was spent on saying nothing concrete but for over 4 million Croatians in the dijaspora all he can spare is one minute. He does not explain how he plans to achieve this, which makes it obvious he really has no plan.
Fifty seventh minute credit to him he mentions the problem dijaspora has voting since the reduction of voting booths. However, I want to know why did he wait to be presidential candidate to raise this issue? Why didn’t he raise this issue in all these years and get HDZ to correct this? Does he only care about this issue since he is a candidate?
He says he wants to encourage direct foreign investment. However, does he know that Croatia is too expensive and bureaucratically slow, and that the party that is backing him is the problem? He will probably successfully bring in foreign investment in the medical sector but he can do that without being president. I don’t think outside that sector he will be convincing.
Croatia needs a Trump like businessman or similar and not this academic. It needs someone with a true detailed program for the dijaspora and not vague promises. Immigration assistance, programs etc could have been mentioned in several minutes if he had such programs, its obvious he doesn’t.
After over 1 hour of watching I’d give this guy a NO vote for the dijaspora. Tonight showed that Primorac doesn’t have the charisma or the program to be leader of Croatia and likely won’t even make into the second round with this kind of performance.
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