Trogrlić on thousands at Lika protest: “I hope the government will not count the politically ‘unsuitable’”

The strongest feature of the “Walk for Lika,” communications expert Jerko Trogrlić said, was that the protest appeared to remain above the usual political divisions. In a social media post, he said large numbers of citizens had gathered not to seek ideological answers, but solutions to a problem they viewed as shared.

“While I watch how many people have gathered today for the Walk for Lika, perhaps the most important thing is that, from everything seen so far, this protest is neither left nor right. I hope it stays that way,” Trogrlić wrote.

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While I watch how many people have gathered today for the Walk for Lika, perhaps the most important thing is that, from everything seen so far, this protest is neither left nor right. I hope it stays that way.

He said protesters expected the state to address issues that should stand above politics: clean land and water, the urgent removal of pollution, and a system capable of preventing a similar situation from happening again. He argued that the government should listen to the protest’s message instead of judging participants by their political suitability.

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Branko Bačić’s statement that institutions should have reacted faster and that it is the government’s responsibility to remove the waste regardless of the number of people at the protest seems to me like a good direction and a necessary communication shift.

Trogrlić also pointed to remarks by Deputy Prime Minister Branko Bačić, who said institutions should have responded more quickly and that the state was responsible for removing the waste regardless of how many people protested. “Branko Bačić’s statement that institutions should have reacted faster and that it is the government’s responsibility to remove the waste regardless of the number of people at the protest seems to me like a good direction and a necessary communication shift,” he said.

He added that the system had clearly failed, but cautioned that this did not mean nobody in the institutions had done their job or that nothing worked. “This is not the moment to defend institutions from citizens, but to improve institutions for citizens,” Trogrlić concluded. He said the Walk for Lika could do something significant for Croatia if it prompted such changes.

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This is not the moment to defend institutions from citizens, but to improve institutions for citizens.