SPLIT AMONG THE LIBERALS

AIM Zagreb, 26 June, 1997

"I think that such behavior exceeds the limits which can be described in decent language, so I'd rather not say anything", stated for Feral Tribune one of the most prominent members of the Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS), Bozo Kovacevic, in his evaluation of the latest developments in the party. Restrained wrath with a high feeling of resignation refers to the latest rapprochement of the HSLS with the ruling Croat Democratic Community (HDZ) which had begun last spring on the eve of the local and regional elections, and which the latest defeat of the leader of the HSLS Vlado Gotovac in the recent presidential elections further accelerated.

Just three days after that, leadership of the HSLS in Zagreb announced that it had signed a Letter of Intent on cooperation with the city organization of the HDZ. It is a document consisting of only two sentences which say that the Liberals will hold the posts of deputy mayor and the head of the department of economy. On that same day, the city assembly, in which the HDZ had won a minimum majority but not in the elections but after that, by recruiting two deputies of the Croat Peasants' Party (HSS), elected the leader of Zagreb Liberals, Dorica Nikolic, to the former, and member of the city leadership of the party, Darinka Orel, for the latter post. This caused a tumult of reactions in the party, but Dorica Nikolic claimed which the city leadership of the HSLS had voted in favour of the decision to cooperate with the HDZ with a majority of votes, and added that the president of the party Vlado Gotovac had agreed with it.

    Gotovac confirmed it, but added that he had not been

informed about the type of cooperation, but when he became aware that it was not "technical" cooperation and that the other opposition parties in the city assembly had not agreed with it, he immediately, after a minute or two, withdrew his agreement. This bungling explanation added the touch of a caricature to the story, but it continued, and could end, as a political thriller, one of the numerous ones which are "performed" on the tumultuous opposition stage. Vlado Gotovac accused Ms. Nikolic that she had deceived him and appealed that she withdraw the decision on cooperation with the HDZ, and when she refused, he suspended the Zagreb leadership of the HSLS, announcing the possibility of excommunication of the renegades.

At the same time, however, the circle began to tighten around Gotovac as well, because his chief party opponent Drazen Budisa convened a session of the Grand Council he chairs, where a decision on convening of an emergency convention of the party could be reached. Although it was not confirmed by anyone, it is believed that the aim could be to dismiss Vlado Gotovac, so Budisa could return to the leading post, who had been forced to withdraw after a previous election defeat of the HSLS (parliamentary elections in autumn 1995). Since it is obvious that many strings of the first man of the party have already slipped from Gotovac's hands, at first glance it seems that the outcome of the developments initiated by Budisa will almost certainly be a new replacement at the party leadership.

But Gotovac has lately shown that, even if he had not mastered all the elements of the political trade, he has more stamina and courage than it was expected, when he announced that he had no intention to withdraw, as he almost explicitly said, in front of the "lesser" men. The facts that relation of forces among the quarrelling factions is not quite clear and that nobody knows exactly where the demarcation line between them lies also speak in his favour. That is why it is not certain that Budisa will win support of the Grand Council, and rumour goes that even his initial attempts to collect the necessary number of signatures of the members of the party for convening the emergency convention have not met with any enthusiasm. It seems that Gotovac after all has more influence on the membership than Budisa's faction has claimed for months, but neither can he be at all certain about who he can really trust (on the eve of the presidential elections even the Sibenik organization of the party turned its back on him, which also signed an agreement about division of power with the HDZ, although it had been loyal to him, not Budisa).

    All things considered, the party is splitting not only

along the seams created by the conflict between Gotovac and Budisa, but also because local and regional organizations of the party have begun to act only according to their local interests, usually motivated with the wish to make use of the little political influence that this until recently greatest opposition party still has. In the case of Dorica Nikolic motives of her joining the HDZ are not quite clear, although in the first reactions in the party and in the public it is possible to hear that she is Budisa's supporter (in an interview given to Vjesnik, Budisa himself supported the agreement of the HSLS with the HDZ in Zagreb, because it would mean a bigger role in city authorities). But, even if that were true, it is still doubtful what her motive for the transformation was, although Bozo Kovacevic - who belongs to neither of the factions, because although he supports Gotovac he blames him the most for the present situation in the party

• believes that her actions are not surprising, since this is not the first time that she has come into conflict with the official policy of the party.

Nevertheless, the explanation can hardly be complete without the datum that Ms Nikolic is an unemployed teacher (registered at the employment office), so that the Liberals have already received the advice from the SDP, which has so far been quite immune to such desertions of the party, not to elect "sans-culotte" for responsible duties any more. This gives a special note to the story, because there are practically no parties in Croatia nowadays which could offer even a minimum financial safety even to their leading members, with the exception of partly the SDP and, fully, the HDZ, of course. This is especially evident in the case of the Liberals, because they are the party of by far the highest intellectuals, with poets, philosophers, theoreticians of literature, film directors, respectable lawyers, in its leadership. They are not all financially unprovided for, of course, but they certainly are socially vulnerable to the extent the entire middle class is, and they form the most reliable electorate of the civic parties of the centre, but also the electorate which due to the economic crisis is gradually falling apart and narrowing down.

After the latest developments in Zagreb, this gloomy picture is almost acquiring the form of something planned and staged: the HDZ has first devastated the electorate of the parties of the centre, and then started to buy the leaders of these parties for small amounts of money. This is causing great frustration which is additionally burdening and compromising the parties of the centre. When after signing the agreement with the HDZ, Dorica Nikolic appeared at the popular weekly interview of Radio 101, literally all the listeners who called, except one, heavily accused her of double-dealing and immorality, sarcastically asking her how come that all of a sudden she likes the party which she had until yesterday badly reproached, and which she had told cynical jokes about before the local elections: "When you vote for Tudjman, you get Canjuga, and when you vote for Dorica Nikolic you get Dorica Nikolic" (allusion to election lists of candidates of the HDZ on all of which Tudjman was the first candidate but only as a bait which helped election of numerous candidates with quite dubious political and human characteristics). The feeling of being cheated among the voters who had given their votes to candidates of the HSLS, but in the end it turned out that they had voted for the HDZ, was also expressed by the journalist of Novi list, Dalibor Foretic: he publicly called Darinka Orel to give back her mandate to him and the citizens of Novi Zagreb who had helped her beat the candidate of the HDZ and become a member of the city assembly.

MARINKO CULIC (AIM)