Anniversary of the Ruling Coalition: Days of Hope and Disappointment

AIM Zagreb, January 6, 2001

The coalition of six parties - Social Democratic Party (SDP), Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS), Croatian Peasants' Party (HSS), Croatian People's Party (HNS), Istrian Democratic Party (IDS) and Liberal Party (LS) - which in January 3 last year in a landslide ended the ten-year long rule of the Croat Democratic Community (HDZ), would still win in the elections, but not with such a big advantage as a year ago. According to the investigation of Zagreb Jutarnji list daily carried out on the eve of the first anniversary of the parliamentary elections in Croatia, two most powerful parties - Racan's SDP and Budisa's HSLS - would win 10 per cent less votes than in January 2000. At the time they won 45 per cent of the votes. This significant decline of popularity, however, need not concern Racan and his Government, primarily because the six ruling parties have no true opposition and because the HDZ, such as it is today, eaten away by faction conflicts which are at daggers drawn with each other, discredited and disliked, is not a political power that could endanger anyone.

With just slightly more than eight per cent of support of the electorate, the HDZ cannot expect to achieve a significant increase of chances in the elections and it can only wait for the voters to forget all the failures of this party during the decade of its rule, patiently watching for the mistakes of the new authorities. The coalition of six victorious parties won the elections in January last year with a single word as its motto : changes. But of the announced changes nothing much has actually changed in the first year of the new administration. Especially not in the internal political sphere - and within this especially in the part the people are mostly interested in - better life, higher employment rate, rise of the standard of living, material safety; briefly, recovery of the completely destroyed economy which is perhaps the greatest victim of the rule of the HDZ, by an utterly distorted model of privatisation, plunder and tycoon looting.

In the foreign political sphere - the one the effects of which an ordinary man does not feel and which he can hardly link to the quality of his own life - Racan's government has done a lot. It has led the country out of almost complete isolation in which Tudjman's "state politics" has left it with all its delusions this syntagm implied. From a country which was not visited by any European or world statesmen and whose officials (with the exception of Turkey where Tudjman often and practically solely travelled) were not invited by anybody, Croatia has become a desirable destination.

In just one year, in the foreign political sphere, Racan's Government managed to do what under Tudjman's rule Croatia would not have achieved in ten. The country was received in the Partnership for Peace and it is practically at the threshold of NATO; it has become a full-fledged member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO); it had begun negotiations on joining and stabilisation of relations with the European Union. The climax of the foreign political success of Croatia after Tudjman was certainly the journey President Mesic and Prime Minister Racan made together to Bill Clinton in Washington, and the Summit Conference held in Zagreb at which all fifteen heads of European states and governments took part.

But, no matter how internal Croatian circumstances be dependent on the foreign ones, the former did not change that quickly and that successfully. Croatian cooperativeness with the international community, contrary to Tudjman's stubbornness, justified by "defence of national sovereignty" and "Croatian self-sufficiency", has just created the foundation for the entrance of foreign capital without which Croatia cannot even conceive any serious development. The foreign political achievements of Zagreb and its internal situation unfortunately do not operate on the principle of connected vessels, so that the rise of the level of water which will bring recovery of the economy and everything else that goes with it is hardly felt in the internal "vessel".

Unemployment the rise of which not only has not been interrupted but has increased and almost reached the crushing figure of 400 thousand people who are looking for a job, which is an avalanche which might bury everything under. One needs to be a wizard to balance priorities: the economy which is the only one that opens new jobs cannot get started without money, and there is no money in the country. The social welfare system, pensions, health protection, education - are reduced and truncated to such an extent that it is impossible to take anything away from them. All that should be fitted into the state budget and it should be balanced so that it will be both socially and developmentally oriented. Besides, it is impossible to increase the budget, just as it is impossible to raise the already enormous taxes which practically are the source of all that.

The citizens, however, have less and less patience to wait for the changes to happen and for the situation which has been going downhill for years not just to be stopped but to get back to the normal flow of economic growth. Racan and his ministers are again announcing a difficult but a “crucial” year. Independent economists, like Branimir Lokin, warn that just the growth rate of seven per cent (which is double than what the Government predicts) enables market expansion which could reduce the unemployment rate to the very endurable eight per cent. Lokin sees tourism and agriculture as Croatian chances. Last summer tourism was the only pleasant surprise in the gloomy picture of Croatian economic circumstances, but agriculture was far from being successful – in the midst of the tourist season, Croatia ran out of pork! This fact and constant protests of the peasants as an expression of discontent with the Government policy towards agriculture, show that Croatia is still far from a happy combination of its perhaps only comparative advantages – tourism and agriculture.

In the past year Racan's Government was the greatest disappointment for the Croatian citizens – this is the result of a public opinion poll carried out by Globus weekly. This is the opinion of 27 per cent of the pollees. The second on the list of disappointments is the Assembly (17.4 per cent), and then follows President Mesic who has disappointed 14.4 per cent of the citizens. The already mentioned poll carried out by Jutarnji list shows that more than one third of the citizens (38.6 per cent) believe that early parliamentary elections should be scheduled.

A true test of the disposition of the nation will be the (regular) local and regional elections, as well as the elections for the upper chamber of the parliament announced to take place in the middle of the year. Although Croatia is tired of elections (as evident from early elections in certain municipalities or city wards and the fourth city elections in Zagreb when the turnout of the voters was crushingly low), those to take place in the beginning of June will be an indicator of the public pulse. Perturbations within the six-member coalition, especially the outbursts of Drazen Budisa who does not seem to have ever reconciled himself to the fact that he has lost presidential elections, and repeated misunderstandings between the Government and the President of the Republic, have tarnished their reputation among the voters. Racan's capability to relieve some ministers (and it is quite certain that he is dissatisfied with the achievements of a part of his cabinet) is minimum and it would require long, exhausting and probably tedious negotiations among the coalition partners.

“If the first year of the new administration which had swept away the HDZ”, as says Vesna Pusic, President of HNS, one of the parties in the coalition government, “was the year of spring cleaning”, in this year, the second year in office, Racan's Government should put such cleaned Croatia into operation. However, one of the strictest critics of the new Government regardless of the fact that his party also participated in it, the IDS – Damir Kajin, believes that the year was wasted because the most painful, the most unpleasant and the most difficult moves were not made. Kajin has in mind the reform of the health and the retirement system, and the whole series of pre-election promises, the much-vaunted 200 thousand new jobs inclusive which nowadays – more than at the time when these promises were given – are a first-class utopia.

Will in the year that has just begun Racan's Government be more successful and will that Government survive the year 2001 is what Croatian voters are mostly interested in. The answer to the second part of this question, and therefrom indirectly to the first as well, they themselves will have to give.

Drago Hedl

(AIM)