WHITEWASHING THE REGIME

AIM Zagreb, 9 January, 1999

The greatest Croatian capitalist and the favourite tycoon of Tudjman's Croat Democratic Community (HDZ), Miroslav Kutle, definitely is not in good graces of the ruling party any more. As state prosecutor's office made it public, investigative proceedings have been initiated against him for the act of "abuse of prerogatives in business operation" in the case of privatisation of the Gradski podrum restaurant. This is indeed just the tip of an enormous iceberg of embezzlements for which for years already independent press and the broadest public have been charging this prominent figure of Croatian rowdy capitalism.

According to what he is charged with, Kutle could end up locked behind bars from one to eight years, and this would without any doubt be the end of this capitalist emperor. It is a different issue when it comes to his empire. Although Kutle is nowadays sharply attacked even by the regime controlled Vjesnik which had suddenly revealed that he was a notorious nouveau riche, it is seriously suspected that he was just HDZ's acting capitalist, in other words that he was the formal owner of an enormous wealth he had collected in the past years, but that its real owner is Tudjman's party. In this sense, Kutle certainly does not have to fear that the judiciary will "crucify" him because he knows too much to be publicly sacrificed, but he probably must agree to be part of the big game of "changing uniforms" that had started in the HDZ.

Faced with increasing discontent of the public with the desperately bad social situation in the country caused mostly by robberies and tranformations, Tudjman's party has since recently started to admit the "eastern sin" in privatisation. It was explicitly expressed by secretary general of the HDZ Drago Krpina who stated that the ruling party has accepted "criticism of the people and it will take necessary steps to achieve the ideal of social justice in Croatia". Now one should expect acceleration of the operation which has begun a few weeks ago, and this is ruining of a certain number of bankers and large private entrepreneurs who are excommunicated from the HDZ's capitalist empire and presented to the citizens as allegedly the only ones to blame for their pauperisation and fall to the very bottom of the society.

However, they are aware in the HDZ that it is not enough to set aside a few nouveaux riches and punish them as an example, but it is necessary to at least partly meet the expectations of the public that even some persons from the authorities would also be punished. In the past few days there have been speculations about changes in the government which in Tudjman's pyramid of power is an almost insignificant executive agency, but now some of its members could be sacrificed as major culprits for disastrous trends in the economy and the social policy of the regime. There are conjectures about the discharge of the minister of the economy Nenad Porges (who would in this way simultaneously be punished for frequent disagreements with the leading figures of the government), and allegedly the minister of agriculture Zlatko Dominikovic will also have to go, despite the fact that he is very popular in the country from where HDZ traditionally draws the greatest support in the electins. As concerning the minister of finance Borislav Skegre who is as the creator of the piratic value-added tax, the most disliked member of the government, he could be removed, it is assumed, only from the post of the vice prime minister, because he is obviously too important as a tested efficient and pitiless collector of the state budget.

But in the background, some even greater and more spectacular changes are coming into sight, which the creators of the ruiling policy will certainly wish to conceal from the public or give them a distorted meaning. The fall of Kutle will probably gradually lead to marginalization of powerful Ivic Pasalic who was the patron of the tycoon from Siroki Brijeg during the entire process of building of his business empire. There are also speculations that Ivan Jarnjak, one of the last "liberals" at the top of the intelligence services, might be removed from his post at the National Security Office, and there are even rumours that Mate Granic, the main protagonist of this faction, might also be removed by being "promoted" to take the place of the ailing chairman of the assembly Vlatko Pavletic. If the latter comes true, it is certain that at least until next elections the estrangement with the West would be maintained, in order to rouse up sentiments of parading and cheering patriotism which has always been very popular in this spaceamong the low-educated part of the electorate.

When this planned stirring up of nationalism in relations with the world is connected with the already mentioned rhetoric of social justice, what you get is something that resembles very much the explosive mixture of nationalism and socialism (=national-socialism), although to be perfectly honest such comparisons are usually more successful only when they remain on the figurative level. But in any case it is possible to speak about intentional turn of the HDZ towards egalitarian demagogy of the extreme right, along with simultaneous strengthening of all levels of power which contribute to the increase of political power of the head of the state. It is interesting that ceretain key details of this process coincide with the plan of restoration of this regime presented in the end of last year by lecturer at the Zagreb Faculty of Political Sciences Ante Barisic better known to the public as former worker of the Yugoslav and later Croatian secret service with which he is still probably in very good relations.

Towards the end of last year Barisic announced a large campaign of moral restoration of HDZ which would include a vigorous action of "clean hands" in banking and the economy. He very explicitly announced liquidation of some until recently successful banks (Glumina banka), and even what is happening now (the fall of Kutle) and what is expected to happen (marginalization of Ivic Pasalic). But the key part of Barisic's story is the thesis on an alleged crawling coup staged by the opposition which has attacked the major institutions of power (by partly boycotting the assembly), including the central one - the institution of the president of the Republic. In order to find a way out of the economic and moral crisis, it is necessary to protect this central link of state authority, to protect it from everything that is marring its political and moral authority, even the "foolish things" happening in the nearest President's family (that is how Barisic characterizes bahavior of Tudjman's wife Ankica, for instance, in view of the scandal which broke out when it was revealed that she has almost one quarter of a million German marks on a bank account which are not registered in the family property card which Croatian politicians are obliged to fill out since recently).

As it is possible to see, this is a campaign intended to make the top of the authorities sacral, since they are evidently believed to be the firmest connective tissue of the entire system of power constructed by HDZ in the past ten years and the strongest guarantee that this system will survive. Social demagogy in it is an important element of wooing the lower strata of the society. On the other hand, pressure would be exerted on the opposition and independent media which cannot fit in this project of intensive shift towards a patriarchal state, while in relation to the world a patriotic stand would be taken which would at the most permit morose cooperation, but with frequent tensions and sparks which exist already.

MARINKO CULIC