CROATIAN OPPOSITION

AIM, ZAGREB, September 9, 1996

What is troubling the Croatian opposition? Several recently commissioned studies by both the opposition as well as the ruling party - without anyone publishing them - give distinct advantage to the opposition, while the reputation of the ruling HDZ has dropped down by some twenty percent, or even more.

Still, this is not felt in the least on the political scene. On the contrary, it seems that instead of occupying this new space that has opened up, the opposition is having enough troubles with controlling the one it already occupies. Fruitless and discrediting negotiations with the HDZ which ended early this summer have nearly destroyed and caused chaos within the HSLS, the largest opposition party till the last elections; during the summer the strongest regional party (The Istrian Democratic Assembly - IDS) suffered a serious internal blow, while as of late there are rumours of frictions within the Croatian Peasants' Party (HSS), which was to be the greatest and most serious competitor of Tudjman's HDZ at the next elections.

These shocks within the opposition do not come from the same epicentre, i.e. are not caused by the same reason, but mostly have the common denominator. These are ever more apparent disagreements regarding the position to be taken towards the weakened HDZ. One approach is "reformistic" and would give the HDZ a chance to rectify its biggest mistakes in the Croatian policy, after which some forms of cooperation between the current opponents could be possible (including a coalition government). The second one excludes this as it is taken for a fact that neither Tudjman nor his party can change. In other words, no cooperation, but rather deepening of the crisis which should induce urgent introduction of changes even before the regular elections.

The latter was recently proposed by the leader of the Croatian Liberals Vlado Gotovac who thinks that by protest marches and non-violent demonstrations the HDZ should be driven out in the open and forced to introduce changes. In the recently aborted HSLS and HDZ negotiations extensive list of political changes was used - from the restriction of Tudjman's presidential powers, respect of the electoral results in Zagreb, abandoning of court persecutions of journalists, up to participation of the opposition in commissions against crime and the abuse of state funds - this would probably be the main idea behind such public protests. However, it is uncertain whether they will be held at all, as it seems that Gotovac himself doesn't believe that his idea has any prospects. In his interview to the "Novi list" he reiterated many times varied thesis that the "people were afraid of changes", as many of them have proved bad so that they are now resigned and convinced that "since these have cheated, so will the others".

But, since the above mentioned studies do not corroborate such reasoning, Gotovac's statement resembles a clumsy attempt to establish opposition's alibi for its weaknesses and disorientation. It is not impossible that they are only washing hands of their own radicalism before the session of the HSLS Great Council which had on its agenda last weekend two important decisions for the further work of the party The first concerned the voting on Drazen Budisa's resignation submitted after abortive negotiations with the HDZ as the party majority considered him to be the main protagonist of excessive rapprochment with the HDZ. The other concerned the nomination of Gotovac for the HSLS candidate at the next year's presidential elections.

Both items were concluded favourably for all concerned: Gotovac was nominated, while Budisa's resignation was refused. Naturally, this was a case of classical compromise which some press circles interpreted as rather unfavourable for Gotovac. Approximately as unfavourable as his evaluation of the public in that same statement. There are rumours that in return for his nomination he agreed to a branch close to the HDZ being restored to its previously lost positions within the Party.

There is no doubt that the HDZ welcomed such outcome in the HSLS. Reacting to the latest developments Zlatko Tomcic stated that the HDZ targeted its activities at sowing dissension between and confronting the top men of the three largest opposition parties. "The main idea of the producer of the scenario for destabilizing individual parties, as well as the overall opposition, actually implies the driving of three wedges, one between Budisa and Gotovac, one between Racan and Tomac and the third one between Tomcic and Pankretic", emphasized Tomcic. The direct reason for Tomcic's reaction was an interview of another, truly strongest man of the HSS, Josip Pankretic, given to a magazine "Panorama" close to the authorities. In it he mentioned a possibility of a coalition being formed between the HSS and the HDZ, and even stated that Tudjman was closer to him than his opposition colleagues the Liberals and the Social-Democrats.

Tomcic attributed these statements to incorrect and malevolent interpretation of the journalist, but Pankretic was known to give problematic statements, like the one about how he had voted for Tudjman and that it was no secret that a large number of average HSS members share his sympathy towards the head of the state. As for the coalition with Tudjman's party, Tomcic explained that it already existed in many instances at the local level and that even before this controversial statement Pankretic mentioned coalition at the state level, although together with other opposition parties. In any case, Tomcic rather clumsily defended Pankretic stating that the coalition was out of the question unless the HDZ changed its "ownership transformation policy", which does not seem a serious obstacle for the establishment of a coalition.

Having this in mind, Tomcic's harsh accusations against the HDZ, logical and convincing from the standpoint of years long attempts of this party to discredit and break the opposition, may now seem just a fig-leave for hiding the impotence of and confusion within the opposition. Naturally, no one wanted to admit that openly, except for Ivan Pauletta, one of the IDS top men, who said: "I am not precisely mad about the HDZ, but it cannot be blamed for all that is bad within the opposition". Pauletta primarily had in mind the ongoing schism within the IDS in which two dominant streams are fighting for the upper hand in the City Board of Pula with such tenacity that they even asked the Government of Croatia (composed of only HDZ members) to intervene. Thereby the opposition itself has set a precedent requesting the arbitration of the state leadership, although that same leadership has been refusing for over a year to hand over the power in Zagreb after a convincing defeat of the HDZ at last year's local elections.

Although declaring himself a mediator who unsuccessfully tried to reconcile two conflicted factions, Pauletta also found himself in the line of the party hierarchy fire for a special reason. Although the conflict in the IDS top echelons has little to do with ideology and a lot with city treasury funds, Pauletta's withdrawal is demanded under trumped up accusations for his excessive "autonomism". Unofficially, it is known that the IDS was harshly reproached for the same reason by the HSS, with which it had a successful coalition until recently and which at the last elections won the greatest number of votes for the opposition. It is therefore rather clear that the opposition does not really need an "advocatus diaboli" from the outside, but is capable of picking a "good" and "successful" quarrel on its own.

Such confrontations would not be so bad were they in the service of promoting the opposition at the party scene and taking of a stand towards two other key protagonists on that scene - the HDZ and the electorate. However, it is now obviously even less clear what is the minimum common ground of the opposition - and the rejection of the normalization of relations between Zagreb and Belgrade shows that it is problematic even when it exists - and on what basis it would be possible to consider the election coalition of the opposition. It is even less clear what does the opposition intend to do about the electoral sympathies of the public that have turned towards it in the last months. Normally, apart from placing part of its own responsibility on it, as can evidently be done.

MARINKO CULIC