Disgraced Mr Europe jumps ship

Published on 10 December 2010 at 11:50

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"He made off before our very eyes,” headlines Vecernji list:Ivo Sanader fled the country on 9 December right after the Zagreb prosecutors requested his parliamentary immunity be lifted. The former conservative prime minister "had built up a power pyramid based on pork-barrelling and corruption” that is now the subject of an investigation. The Croatian dailyretraces his trajectory "from pharaoh to Mephisto". Beneath the veneer of a Christian Democrat Europhile well-connected to European chancelleries, proclaiming he’d get Croatia into the EU, lay a demi-despot. "Sanader concentrated all the executive power in his own hands and governed with an informal cabinet made up of cronies from the ruling party, the HDZ, or from his circle of trusty friends,” accuses the paper.

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