ZAGREB, Croatia: The prime minister on Friday requested that the managing board of Croatia’s state-run news agency be dissolved — just months after it was appointed by his government — saying it had failed to consult employees when choosing a new director-general.
Prime Minister Ivo Sanader said the four-member board of the HINA agency demonstrated a “great democratic deficit” because they made a decision on director before the fifth member of the board — the one that represents HINA employees — had been elected.
The board, he said, “eliminated possibility that HINA workers give their say” about the new director, Smiljanka Skugor Hrncevic, elected Thursday after working a long time as HINA news editor.
Sanader said the Cabinet would now ask parliament to dissolve the board, just months after his government had pushed for its election despite criticism from home and abroad that the four appointees were not competent for the job.
The International Federation of Journalists expressed concerns at the time that, by appointing the four — including a veterinarian and a man who only recently graduated law — the government in fact aimed to put the public news agency under its control.
Sanader said the workers’ representative at the board, or its fifth member, was to be elected at the ongoing parliament session, and that the board should have waited until then to chose a new director.
Parliament, where Sanader’s Croatian Democratic Union holds majority, is likely to follow his request and fire the board, after which they would have to elect a new one.
HINA is owned and mainly financed by the state. Most domestic and several foreign media subscribe to its service.
