NEW POLITICAL OUTLINES

AIM, ZAGREB, January 31, 2000

A month after parliamentary elections, at which the former opposition won by a landslide with almost two-third majority, Croatia is rapidly assuming new political outlines. The first post-Tudjman Government, which was formed last week by the front man of the Social-Democratic Party, Ivica Racan, made it clear from the very beginning that it will act with determination, even along the authoritarian lines to a certain degree, although its new, greater jurisdiction has yet to be regulated by the Constitution. This might not be possible to carry out before the end of this year.

However, this muscular edition of the new Government will most probably meet with the understanding and sympathies of the public because the newly elected authorities are expected to use a firm hand in some fields, particularly in the struggle against organised crime. By a number of symbolic gestures the Government wants to create an impression that it will be rigorous, and at least equally honest and ethical. Just as it promised before the elections, its first decision concerns the wages of public servants, which have been cut by forty percent.

Consequently, instead of 35 thousand kunas, in the future the President of the Republic will receive 21 thousand kunas, which is slightly over five

thousand German marks. Instead of 25 thousand kunas which was the salary of the President of Parliament and the Prime Minister until the elections, they will now earn 15 thousand kunas, which is less than 4 thousand German marks. Naturally, these changes have a psychological rather than financial effect, since Racan cannot be expected to feed the entire deprived population with one fish, but former HDZ Cabinets were not willing to make even such small gesture of good will. That is why they incurred universal odium for their insensitivity and arrogance, which was finally their political death.

The new Government, formed by six opposition parties, is obviously composed of bright and smart men, so that now for the first time the denizens of Zagreb can see things which one could rather expect in a Scandinavian country - Ministers who come to work to Banski dvori (the Government house) in old Golf and cheap Citroen cars. The only thing that spoils the idyll is the tense atmosphere surrounding the presidential campaign, in which two candidates who will confront each other on Monday in the second electoral round, are so fiercely opposed that uninformed people find it hard to believe that they belong to the same, until recently opposition camp (Budisa is representative of the opposition team SDP-HSLS, and Mesic of the foursome: HSS,IDS,LS and HNS).

Admittedly, the campaign has slightly calmed down as there are no more daily rallies at which the two of them addressed their supporters and even propaganda spots are less frequently shown on TV. However, this even deepens the impression that they have concentrated on each other so much

that they have completely forgotten all about the public. Budisa and his

electoral headquarters have asked their voter to again cast their votes for the political option that has prevailed at parliamentary elections when the SDP-HSLS coalition won over half of all votes. Voters have also been sort of threatened that the winning coalition could not guarantee that it will be able to keep its promises given at parliamentary elections if its candidate Budisa does not win presidential elections.

In addition, the papers which are still controlled by HDZ and some generals of the Croatian Army, accused Mesic as a collaborator of the Yugoslav secret service. The reaction of his electoral rival was unconvincing, to say the least. Budisa formally distanced himself from smear campaign against Mesic but made it clear that he intended to use it to his benefit as he asked Mesic to publicly state whether it was true that in his informative talks in Udba (State Secret Service) he called some Croatian dissidents from the seventies "fanatics". Mesic truly issued several statements and gave interviews in which he attacked some of Budisa's stands from early seventies assessing the students' movement, which Budisa led at that time, as too radical and revolutionary and blamed him for "Croatian spring" persecutions that followed.

No matter how much the insistence on these almost thirty years old events may seem pointless, it is easy to recognise their current context. Namely, Budisa accused Mesic of conducting his presidential campaign from the positions of raw and "primitive populism", hinting at his sometimes truly childish statements that he "likes to deal openly with the people", as well as rallies which by their iconography often reminded of the gatherings that Tudjman and HDZ used to organise in early nineties. But the persuasiveness of these accusations is dispersed by the very fact that they are made by

Budisa who is, without doubt, one of the historic fathers of Croatian populism who obviously kept some of his manners to this very day (like exerting pressure on his own voters), although they are no longer effective as they used to be some three decades ago.

Public opinion polls which are regularly published by newspapers before second electoral round, show that Mesic is still leading by 10 percent as in the first round, while in the latest poll of the "Morning Paper" (Jutarnji list) Mesic won 49 percent and Budisa 38 percent of votes. However, another public opinion survey carried out few days ago by the "New Paper" (Novi list) warns that the second round could turn out to be more

unpredictable than it seemed so far, as it awarded Mesic 37 percent and Budisa 33 percent of votes. The impression that Mesic might have already

reached the peak of public support and that there is little more he can expect from that corner only corroborates that we can expect an exciting

finale.

On the other hand, Budisa could easily attract those 30 percent of votes that were given to those candidates that lost in the first round (Mate Granic, Slaven Letica, Anto Dzapic, Tomislav Mercep, Ante Ledic, Zvonimir Separovic, Ante Prkacin). What is specially important is that the majority of these votes belong to voters of right-wing and nationalistic persuasion, so that despite the fact that he enjoys the support of the Social-Democratic Party, Budisa has thus became a personification of the

conservative Croatia which, to make the paradox even greater, was defeated at parliamentary election by none else but Racan's and his own party.

Budisa is sufficiently adroit politician to be aware of this and that is why he said that he did not want those votes (but did not publicly reject them). However, if the public recognises him as the leader of the basically defeated politics, that will certainly be his greatest handicap in the closing stages of these presidential elections. His trouble is that no matter how much wiser and more profound than Mesic he might seem, he still makes wrong moves at the right time letting the events take their course, instead of controlling them.

That is why Budisa seems like a tragedian with poor sense of timing, who back in 1990 acted from the positions of moderate nationalism not realising that that was the time for much tougher men, same as he is now acting from the positions of soft-core reformist anti-Tudjman policy being unaware that now the time has come for boys of Mesic's stamp who with much acting, but at the top of their voice, claim that Tudjman's era is over and done with for good. That is why Budisa is now forced, practically in secrecy, to lead an army of lost HDZ members who have sent him an open appeal through papers pleading: "Save us!". Just like Josko Celan, one of Tudjman's leading journalists, has done it recently in "Free Dalmatia" (Slobodna Dalmacija).

MARINKO CULIC (AIM)