New Croatian Prime Minister-Designate Named

Tihomir Orešković (photo credit/pliva)

– New Croatian Prime Minister-Designate Named

– Agreement on a non-party technocrat Prime Minister reached

– After yet another u-turn in the negotiations to form the next Croatian government it looks like a conclusion to the 6-week long drama is nigh

Just when it looked like ruling center-left ‘Croatia is Growing’ coalition, led by Prime Minister Zoran Milanović, would form the next Croatian government with MOST (Bridge), the party led by Metković mayor Božo Petrov who were made ‘King-makers’ after finishing third in the hung elections last month, the biggest u-turn of the 6-week negotiations saw MOST announce last night that they would in fact join forces with the ‘Patriotic Coalition’, headed by its party chairman Tomislav Karamarko.

Initially thought to be PM front-runner Božo Petrov (photo credit / metkovicnews)

MOST have always been keen on a nonaligned party member to take the Prime Minister function, and on Wednesday afternoon at a press conference it was announced that Tihomir Orešković would be put forward as the man for the job.

“He is top professional. Talks will continue, but we have agreed that expertise is important. There is no time for experimenting and bad decisions. We are on the way to reforms,” said Karamarko on Wednesday.

If accepted by President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, Orešković will become the nation’s new PM.

So who is Tihomir Orešković?

Born in Zagreb in 1966, Orešković graduated with a Chemistry degree from the McMaster University in Canada and completed his MBA studies in 1991. He started his professional career in 1992 in the finance and international trade department at Canadian pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, specialising in the Latin America and Asia market.

In 2009 Orešković joined Croatian pharmaceutical giants Pliva and was until now CFO for Teva Europe, Pliva’s owners.

Outgoing PM Zoran Milanović

Just to recap, the 2015 Croatian parliamentary election were held on 8 November 2015 with no party securing a majority in the 151 seats in Parliament which were up for grabs.