With Ivo Sanader, longtime leader of HDZ who ran a highly personalized campaign and won the 2007 general election for HDZ, in prison for conspiracy to commit organized crime, the issue of fighting political and economic corruption surged as one of the main themes of the campaign. Jadranka Kosor and her ministers were arguing they enabled a real fight against organized crime, citing the Sanader case, as well as the arrest of Damir Polančec, former Deputy Prime Minister and numerous other board members and heads of government companies. However, most of the accused were in fact members of HDZ and many political pundits and law experts speculated it was only a matter of time until HDZ as a legal entity was investigated. For years HDZ was under heavy criticism for having the most expensive campaigns without ever logically explaining how the party could afford such elaborate campaign production. Finally, on 27 October, only three weeks before the start of the official campaign, the offices of the Attorney General and USKOK announced HDZ was a party under investigation for organizing with the purpose to commit crime. Opposition MPs, such as Željko Jovanović of SDP who was famous for his claim that the head of HDZ was a criminal organization, demanded the truth about such things as Jadranka Kosor's own failed presidential candidature which was suspected to be financed by 'black funds'. Kosor kept repeating she was unaware of the finances and such party veterans like Vladimir Šeks accused Sanader, who was still in prison, for shifting his own criminal activities on the party. Their main message was that a party can't share collective blame, but that guilt should be placed on individuals who benefited from criminal activities.