TUDJMAN LEADING THE CAMPAIGN

AIM ZAGREB, 6 April, 1997

"On April 4, President of the Republic, Dr.Franjo Tudjman underwent his regular medical check-up which determined an extremely positive reaction to the treatment". This is a part of the Medical Board's release which is occasionally issued for the public. At the head of this board is Dr. Andrija Hebrang M.D., Minister of Health, who never misses the opportunity to mention that members of this board are also some eminent foreign doctors of medicine.

The release states more precisely that the President's "subjective gastric problems have been eliminated, and that thanks to his good recovery he has regained weight", while "the swelling of the lymph nodes shows the tendency of going down further". In the end, the statement emphasizes that "the President has restored his full working capacity and is capable of performing all functions without any restrictions", which is obviously the key message intended for the public and especially for his political opponents at the forthcoming elections. Several days before the local and partial parliamentary elections (April 13), and several months before the presidential elections (Tudjman's second), the HDZ headquarters wanted to send a message that its trump-card was capable of and prepared for the electoral show-down.

True enough, Tudjman is trying hard and, although he has limited the number of his electoral appearances on account of his illness, his emotional involvement and efforts at these rallies is greater than that of some much younger and healthier opposition helmsmen. In addition, it is evident that he has regained some weight, but also equally obvious that months of chemotherapy have left traces which are impossible to hide. His hair has already thinned so much that no tricks of TV cameramen can help avoid the traitorous "counterlight" as his thinned scalp now shows even under the normal daylight. It is under such impressions that the press renewed the story of Tudjman's possible successor (Granic, Greguric, Seks, Hebrang, Sarinic, Budisa...) - of whom not a single one had guts to honestly deny them, let alone confirm them - as well as of possible constitutional amendments. Allegedly these would include neither a transition to parliamentary system, as the HDZ still has a comfortable majority in Parliament, nor the introduction of the function of Vice-President of the Republic, whom Tudjman would help to be elected and, after that, when his health deserted him, to whom he would transfer state powers.

However, after the release of the medical board on President's "full working capacity", it is clear that such speculations do not hold water. Tudjman obviously came to the conclusion that any mention of his successor, no matter how meticulous and controlled, could jeopardize the stability of the HDZ, and that the only thing left was to determine whether presidential elections should be held at the beginning or in the middle of the summer (the Constitution prescribes that they should be held two months at the most, and at least one month, before the termination of his mandate, meaning that the elections must be held between June and August). As Tudjman's health is obviously deteriorating, irrespective of Hebrang's statements, the earliest possible date seems the most probable one, the more so if the HDZ succeeds in scoring, more or less, satisfactory results (i.e. any which would not mean a convincing victory for the opposition at the local elections and would not deprive the ruling party of the majority, not even a minimal one, in the District Chamber) at the local, as well as parliamentary elections.

Tudjman obviously counts that the HDZ still has strength enough to strike this modest electoral balance and is now, with offensive electoral speeches, eagerly striving to help his party in this, which, in turn, would make his victory at presidential elections a certain and routine one. At the center of all his electoral addresses - and the HDZ electoral campaign as a whole - is the reintegration of the most-eastern part of Croatia. This explains the intensive involvement of HDZ cadres from Eastern Slavonia in the campaign, and literally daily public appearances of Glavas, District Prefect of Osijek Baranja District, whose every step across the flat Slavonia the prime time News of the Croatian television follows carefully, and where up till now he had opened a dozen of schools, kindergartens, roads, gas stations, and God knows what else. It is known for a fact that nowhere a local politician ever had such a Barnum-like and profuse electoral campaign, as it is equally clear that Glavas has only been assigned the role of a travelling drummer charged with announcing the pending establishment of the Croatian rule along the Danube river and, what is most important, arrival of Tudjman - to Vukovar.

Although by marking the beginning of the construction of a bridge over the Danube river at Belisce, Tudjman made it known that his presidential campaign will focus on the slogan "Croatia on the Danube", it will be his arrival to Vukovar, symbolically and, as it is to be expected, with much pompous propaganda that will bring this focal point of his campaign to the fore. In his electoral speech in Rijeka he announced that he would go to Vukovar "in several weeks" by train, in other words, same as in 1995 when he travelled to the just liberated Knin by the "Train of Freedom". At that time this event was also used as one of the major HDZ baits for the extraordinary elections for the parliamentary Chamber of Representatives, and the party middlemen enjoying the greatest Tudjman's trust, provided the crown. Just before the departure of the train they organized for the Mayor of Split to go over from the Liberal to the ruling party so that someone "worthy of that honour" would welcome Tudjman at the final destination of the "Train of Freedom", and naturally that could only have been a HDZ member.

However, the "Train of Freedom" did not bring the HDZ spectacular electoral results. On the contrary. The intention of that party to win a two-thirds majority in the Chamber of Representatives failed, and at the simultaneous repeated local elections in Zagreb, Tudjman's party suffered the most convincing electoral defeat ever. If we copy this to the present times when the ruling party's electorate has been reduced to perhaps not more than 30 percent, it is clear that new promotive trains would most probably help only Tudjman personally. It is not enough for his party and it has to look for a solution elsewhere. The new turbulences in the opposition ranks just before the elections, when they have taken the two opposite electoral sides, have brought much relief. This has most certainly eliminated the danger of HDZ suffering a major loss at these elections, but there is still ample possibility for the opposition to score the best electoral results ever...

In such a situation, even when the things were not so much going downhill, the HDZ most frequently resorted to the obstruction of the political competition. In other words, it did not so much endeavour to take the new political space as to make it inaccessible to its electoral opponents. Therefore, somewhere around the middle of the electoral campaign the HDZ started a rumour that the elections would not change anything and that they were not worth the effort nor nerves, with the intention of encouraging voters, particularly those in cities, to abstain from elections, since the HDZ fares much worse than in the country. For that reason an aggressive harangue was soon launched against the opposition parties, particularly the Social-Democratic, which has real chances of scoring the greatest success at these elections, and perhaps of becoming the strongest opposition party, particularly at the local level.

    The campaign against reformed communists was

launched by Tudjman himself at the electoral rally in Rijeka

• until then the most heated anti-communist tirades came from Tomic's Peasant Party, as well as from a number of satellite right wing parties - when he rather indirectly accused them of reviving the "communist spirit", and even of restoring the "Communist Party of Croatia" which would become a part of the "new movement for Yugoslavia". Thereby Tudjman fully discarded the role of the head of state who is above any party and directly placed himself at the head of his party's electoral assault unit. Therefore, there is no doubt that his party too was very keen on having the release, claiming that the President was fit as a fiddle, issued precisely at this moment.

MARINKO CULIC