The former Interior Minister Vesna Györkös Žnidar left the SMC Party. Györkös Žnidar said that, among other reasons, there was mainly the disagreement with the SMC leadership on migration and security policy, regarding which she was often denied public support.
The former minister pointed out that the SMC leadership often denied her support, especially when it came to popular cases in the media about immigration, in the discussions and voting in parliament regarding the changes of the asylum legislation, as well as in her response to the first police strike.
The party’s leadership blamed her emphasis on security and the quest for a sustainable immigration image, stating that it was “incompatible with SMC’s liberal view on immigration”. The former minister noted that the SMC, the biggest government party at the time, did not take any concrete actions in the direction of adopting a comprehensive state immigration strategy that would encompass immigration as a wider issue, than just an issue regarding the statutory security tasks of the Ministry of the Interior (MNZ).
“The left liberal attitude towards migration is not achieved by renouncing support for their interior minister, nor with informal pressure on the MNZ decision makers and police officers who have to conduct procedures with the foreigners,” said Györkös Žnidar. According to her, this is achieved through a thorough discussion of the migration or asylum strategy of the state, and with the consequent change of legislation, “which, despite the large number of SMC members of parliament at the time, did not happen, even after a number of draft laws were passed”.
Györkös Žnidar’s departure was already signaled by her decision not to run for the last parliamentary election. Among other things, she disagreed with SMC’s program on security policy.