A STORM IN A TEACUP

SUMMARY:

After an almost four-month long boycott, the Croatian opposition returned to Parliament. This looks like the defeat of the opposition, because it fitted in perfectly with Tudjman's plans on the major personnel reshuffling he needs before the important forthcoming international negotiations. He wishes to put in order and re-design the two main showcases of Croatian authority - Parliament and the Government - while everything out of the public eye would be retained and cemented. Thus, in parallel with the "refreshing" of the Government and Parliament, accelerated "HDZ-isation" of military and intelligence services is being carried out, by expelling members of the former YPA and "Yugo - personnel", and incorporating the most loyal men, which, as a rule means, the hard core ones.

AIM, ZAGREB, September 25, 1994

The large-scale parliamentary storm blowing over Croatia in the past months has come back to the teacup. The opposition which, for almost four months, swore not to return to Parliament as long as it was headed by the ardent lover of Latin quotations, Nedeljko Mihanovic, elected by the HDZ in contravention of the Parliamentary Agreement, without the consent of the other parties, nevertheless last week "sneaked back" to the parliamentary benches: of their magnificent anger and heated words only barely noticeable spite remained, namely opposition representatives when speaking from the rostrum do not address Mihanovic with "Mr.Speaker" and try to ignore him.

The opposition came back with the explanation that it had nowhere else to present its positions and that the public had "certainly already forgotten" the reasons for the boycott. This sounds comical, because no one knows the mood of the public for certain, but the first half of the explanation might contain a grain of truth. Parliament is really a place where the opposition has more breathing space because TV broadcasts the entire sessions without censorship, which is inevitable in other programmes.

However, this scant media gain can hardly conceal the impression of defeat because, this spring, when the HDZ majority in Parliament literally hung on a thread, the opposition already saw itself not only on screens, but also in power. Their hopes were stirred up by Tudjman's once closest associates, Mesic and Manolic, leaving the HDZ, with the promise of sixteen representatives of the ruling party to cross over to their camp - the Independent Croatian Democrats - which would give the opposition block supremacy in Parliament for the first time. Afterwards it turned out that the MM tandem was not able to attract more than half of that number, because the HDZ had exerted pressure worthy of Gavras's films on the others, but at least at the beginning everyone believed that to be possible. So did Tudjman.

That is why he initiated the mentioned Parliamentary Agreement which was to reflect the new balance of forces and make available four posts of Vice-President for the opposition instead of the hitherto one, while Mesic and Manolic would "return" their presidential posts, which they, skilfully taking advantage of ambiguities of the Rules of Procedure, had managed to defend during the entire spring from the attacks of furious HDZ members. But, everything that seemed almost agreed upon was subsequently torn down by a veritable parliamentaey intifada of members of the HDZ right-wing, who refused to vote for opposition candidates, and then without asking the opposition anything elected a new President, the mentioned Latino-maniac Mihanovic. The onslaught of the right-wing accompanied by theretofore unregistered outbursts of bile and even overt threats to the opposition, was so violent that Parliament instead of "falling into the hands" of the opposition, in a short period of time actually became a true "Kronstadt" of the turbo-nationalistic right-wing which even Tudjman was unable to tame.

That is why, in the tested fashion, he let events unfold and only afterwards, during the summer and in recent weeks, made several moves on the personnel chess-board with the probable aim of centering the political pendulum which had started veering completely to the right. Branimir Glavas was relieved of his party functions, the promotion of Ivic Pasalic to Head of Tudjman's office was stopped and, Verna Girardi-Jurkic and Vladimir Seks, who was elected Vice-President of Parliament last week, were removed from the Government. The shifting of the latter, who is along with Gojko Susak considered the strongest man in the right camp, evidently has two aims: on the one hand to disencumber Valentic's Government of the ballast of "overzealous politicians", and on the other, via right-oriented but loyal Seks, to restore a balance in the boiling Parliament.

This seems to be working for the present. True, the Minister of Defence, Susak, is still sticking out in the Government as he, in no case fits into the "tame" physiognomy of the "technocratic" Cabinet (Vladimir Bebic, the "bomber from Kvarner" recently called him a "war criminal" in Parliament because of his "merits" in B&H). But, Susak is, nonetheless, a person whose relieving of office Valentic is not up to, and it is speculated that even Tudjman, who allegedly also finds him a nuisance, shies away from doing that, fearing conflict with Susak's Herzegovinians just like Milosevic's with the Bosnian Serbs.

In any case, at least a measure of stability has been restored to the Government and the same happened in Parliament. In contrast to expectations voiced in the spring and summer, the return of the opposition passed without victorious fanfare and HDZ officials even amicably said that Budisa, Stipac, Racan, Jakovcic and the others should not be considered defeated but "welcome". This was certainly abetted by the distancing, this summer, of the mentioned persons from Mesic and Manolic , the "old" opposition blaming them for disinforming them on the number of converts in the ruling party and even for pulling it into a conflict between the "old HDZ" and the "new HDZ", in which they got the shorter end of the stick.

These two gestures of reconciliation of the opposition and the ruling party were, at the first session of the full House, quickly united in the unanimous conclusion of Parliament, namely that "UNPROFOR's hitherto mandate in the territory of the Republic of Croatia cannot be extended and shall be considered completed". This was not a unilateral notice to the UN Peace Forces, which is not in the competence of Parliament, but giving a "technical" one hundred days to UNPROFOR to start fulfilling the letter of UN Resolutions, after which measures of termination of their mandate would be applied.

Nonetheless, this is the largest radicalization of Croatian opinion on this question so far, and by the uninamous voting of the ruling party and the opposition at that. Who won and who lost by this "marriage"? The opposition will certainly say that they profited, because since UNPROFOR's arrival they had been trying to push through conclusions to force "Tudjman - the yesman" to bear the consequences of the soft mandate and non-efficiency of the "blue helmets". Now, they have allegedly succeeded in that. But, the ruling party has already stated that the harsh parliamentary conclusions are only part of a strategy, i.e. they are rear support to Tudjman who is expected to wheedle as much as possible at the UN General Assembly. Thus, the turning of the blade of parliamentary conclusions against UNPROFOR and in no way towards the Croatian authorities is just what Tudjman and HDZ needed. If such a strategy was staged by Seks, and he is usually in charge of that, he can calmly report to have successfully completed his first task.

Nevertheless, if the return of the opposition to Parliament can be considered a defeat and it certainly can, it is not because of this first lost serve. Namely, it is rather likely that the stratification in the HDZ, which started this spring, will continue with a short break, so that the opposition may be able to return more serves than it, depressed as it is, now believes. Their return rather seems like a defeat because it perfectly fitted in with Tudjman's plans on the major personnel reshuffling he needs before the significant, perhaps decisive, international negotiations. His idea is to put in order and redesign the two major showcases of Croatian authority - Parliament and the Government - and to retain and cement everything far from the public eye. Thus, in parallel with the "refreshing" of the Government and Parliament, accelerated "HDZ-isation" is in course of military and intelligence services from which members of the former YPA and "Yugo-personel" are being removed and the most loyal, i.e. hard core ones, incorporated.

In other words, the state is putting on a smile (towards the outside) and clenching its fists (towards the inside). The opposition should not harbour the illusion that by making several gestures of good will, it has crossed over to the camp of those for which the former is intended.

MARINKO CULIC