TUDJMAN'S LIST OF THE OBEDIENT

AIM, Zagreb, October 11, 1995 Croat political parties have submitted the necessary election "papers" to the competent state committee, and from that moment, the third parliamentary elections scheduled for October 29, have practically begun. The parties have submitted 14 "state" lists, each including eighty candidates who are competing for the membership in the bigger, Chamber of Representatives of the Assembly. Such a large number was welcomed with great satisfaction by the ruling Croat Democratic Community (HDZ). "The opposition is acting to our advantage again", one of Tudjman's closest and most diligent collaborators, Ivic Pasalic, declared, implying that fragmented as it is, the opposition would have problems with exceeding the election minimum of five per cent necessary to enter the parliament. And, since the "wasted" votes of those who do not are attributed to the most successful ones - HDZ will benefit.

This is, however, only partially true. The opposition has managed, though with a great effort, to create a coalition group (Croat Peasants' Party, Istrian Democratic Assembly, Croat National Party) and another "veiled" coalition (Action of Social Democrats, Dalmatian Action). This is in itself a step forward in relation to the 1992 elections, which is even more evident with lists of 28 election units in which parties have one candidate each. There, seven most influential (this attribute should be taken with reservation) opposition parties will appear with a joint candidate and in this way the disastrous mistake made in previous elections will be corrected. The HDZ won then with barely 20 per cent of the votes, because the votes of the opposition parties were squandered due to a complete lack of a will for cooperation.

There was such a high dose of disunity that the already famous tailor of election laws, Smiljko Sokol, could calmly cut out a law which would in any other circumstances be a double-edged sword for HDZ itself. Namely, he prescribed majority elections with no second round in which relative majority is sufficient for a victory, and as the opposition altogether was getting more than 50 per cent, it should have been an easy victory for it. Sokol, nevertheless, chose this variant of the election law, although aware that candidates of the HDZ could hardly get more than a half, but on the hand, counting on disunity of the opposition. This time, however, probably more in self-defence than consciously and deliberately - it reacted as it did so as not to be deceived again. Therefore, the opposition is starting the race for 28 individual seats which will approximately fill one fourth of the parliament, increasing its chances this much, and the general atmosphere which was characterized by fear and dismay after the successes of the Croat Army, has greatly improved. Some oppositionists even announce a victory, which hardly anyone would have even dared jokingly utter just twenty days ago.

This should, nevertheless, rather be understood as an attempt of the oppositionists to encourage themselves than as a realistic assessment. The ruling party which had allegedly experienced a disturbing decline of popularity last winter in a few polls made for its needs, is not concerned about this any more after military actions "Flash", "Storm" and "Mistral". It is quite certain that it can count on at least about forty per cent of votes again just as it had won before, which later became a solid simple majority when "turned into" seats in the Chamber of Representatives. Now, a separate list was introduced for the diaspora (ten per cent of the seats) which is considered to be a sure catch of the HDZ, but it will also get hold of most of the votes wasted by parties which will fail to exceed the election limit raised from three to five per cent (eight or eleven for coalitions). Therefore, the HDZ can count on sixty per cent of the seats, or as many as it has now, and it openly announces that it will even make an attempt to win two thirds. That would make the HDZ eligible to amend the Constitution on its own, and as it had been announced before, transform the present "semi-presidential" system into a purely presidential one.

Election forecasts made on the basis of newspaper polls, certify that the optimism of HDZ is well founded, although there are differences between the results obtained by journals closely connected with the authorities and those obtained by others. Obzor, for instance, registers that the citizens will give the HDZ twice as many votes as the opposition, while Globus, on the contrary, registers only a small domination of the opposition just slightly over a half of the votes. The difference is big, and although even Globus's poll does not threaten the victory of the HDZ, the road to a two-third majority seems to be much steeper and less certain than those in power tend to believe. There is an attempt to compensate for it by an aggressive election campaign in which they do not shrink even from open usurpation of the most powerful medium, the television, which refused to broadcast the election spot of the greatest opposition party, Budisa's HSLS, on the very first day of the campaign, under a childish pretext that it irritates the public because it presents untruths about the situation in the country (as if the elections did not exist only to see whose party "truth" makes a louder echo in the public).

At the same time, the television neatly carried a half-an-hour long story about Franjo Tudjman's and Mate Granic's election rallies in Korcula and Dubrovnik whose candidate the latter is, with a rather vague explanation that this program was "sponsored by the HDZ". The rules publicized by the Croat Radio-Television prescribe carrying of election gatherings only in information programs, while everything else is paid for dearly, so that a "sponsor" can be only someone who either pays a lot or, on the contrary, who gets everything for free (is it difficult to guess who might that be). If the obvious irregularities are disregarded, which would have been a case for the financial police if this were not a typical party state, one could say that the propagandist staff of the HDZ has shown more professionalism than in the previous years.

The messages of the spots seen on TV are not as "loud" as those in the last election campaign, when the Istrian Democratic Assembly, for instance, was defamed in a specially made cartoon as a sympathizer of Serb Chetniks and Italian Fascists. This same redesgning of the primitive propaganda seems to have been the landmark for making the list of HDZ candidates, too. Some of the hard-core "hawks" among the Rightists, such as Sime Djodan, Gordana Turic and Vice Vukojevic do not appear on the list (the latter was assigned to the post of the deputy of Andrija Hebrang in "hot" Sesvete, where a few months ago, a citizen was murdered, and it was reported that people directly linked to the authorities were involved, so the case has never been resolved). This seemingly reveals Tudjman's intention to anchor the party closer to the centre relying mostly on the personnel he himself has brought up and not on those who had helped him found HDZ, whose ambitions, obviously, he cannot easily control.

Therefore, the complete previous leadership found itself on the top of the party election list, men who were tested in political and personnel turmoils in the past period (Mihanovic, Susak, Valentic, Pavletic, former member of the IDS Martincic - exceptionally awarded for Tudjman's insatiable appetite for Istria, Milas, Pasalic, Vrdoljak, Bebic, Katicic). But, the main characteristic of these top-10 is not the result of their ideological stances, but loyalty to Tudjman, and that was also decisive for elimination of Djodan, Vukojevic and Turic. That Tudjman is not disgusted with the rightists, but only with the rightists he cannot control is proved by the fact that he has deleted from the list both the moderate liberal Klaric and Segota who appeared last year as a candidate for the Chairman of the Assembly), also not so much for their ideology as for their reluctance to obey the well-known party "discipline" at all times.

Therefore, the HDZ remains the party of all options - from the extremist nationalistic to neo-Bolshevik (if there are any differences between the two), but one of them, after all, managed to get priority. This is the "option" of obedience, as the only relevant category of political life in the ruling party. And after the elections, probably in the whole country.

MARINKO CULIC