PRE-ELECTION PERSONEL CHANGES

AIM Zagreb, 24 January, 1999

There is no more doubt that Franjo Tudjman has decided to reconstruct the top of state and judicial authorities and by doing it at least partly pacify the growing tide of discontent of the public which has made his party sink on the scale like never before (in numerous polls, HDZ enjoys the support of about twenty per cent of the voters and in some even less) in this year of parliamentary elections which officially should take place until the end of the year or in the beginning of next year at the latest. In the situation in which discontent is for the first time acquiring the forms of spontaneous self-organisation - in many factories devastated by tycoon "privaisation", which is often just another name for ordinary plunder, workers are establishing "crisis staffs" and similar forms of gathering have already been applied by peasants - it would be only logical to change the policy.

But, Tudjman is too involved in creating even its finest details to be able to do anything of the kind, so instead of his policy he has decided to change those who are implementing it. Announcements in this sense have arrived from the very top, and their tone was very resolute which meant that time of principled criticism has expired and that a few "scalps" are now needed as an example to prove to the public that its criticism has been respected. At the session of the council for defence and national security, which operates as the personal staff for defence of Franjo Tudjman's power, discontent was expressed because despite the decisions reached in this sense, the situation has not improved in banks and tycoon companies heavily encumbered in debt, but courts which do not solve such cases were especially stressed.

Immediately after that, in his annual report on the status of the state and nation, Tudjman repeated discontent with the courts, especially those of the higest instance, underlining that the Supreme and the Constitutional Court should act as "a harmonious unity". Since this refers to the problem of very long and complex haggling of the two highest judicial instances, which opens the possibility of different interpretations of Tudjman's words, clarification arrived almost immediately from the top of HDZ that there will be discharges "at the top of the state attorney's office and the Supreme Court". Not even in such badly organised states is it customary for such replacements to be announced by political parties, but obviously in such a hurry there is no time to think about the "aesthetic impression" and those who are held responsible are expected only to empty their desks as soon as possible.

President of the Supreme Court Milan Vukovic immediately submitted his resignation and accompanied it by an amazing statement that he hoped he would ne promoted to a higher post, while state attorney Marijan Hranjski, known as a personification of silent submissiveness, humbly declared that he had done his "task" at the present post, but that he would gladly accept another one. President of the Constitutional Court Jadranko Crnic, the only one who believed to be autonomous because contrary to the former two he signed a series of decisions which greatly annoyed Tudjman and his party, stated that he would retire in the end of the year, exactly as he had announced before this turmoil.

In midst of this personnel commotion, one of Crnic's direct rivals was removed from office whose life was made difficult for a few months by decisions of the Constitutional Court on returning pensions taken away during the war. The person in question is the chief of pension insurance fund Damir Zoric who certainly had not worked worse than expected to - he was involved in numerous stratagems in which pensioners' money was used in dubious business deals, but always by instructions of HDZ - but he had to leave now. It is believed that he is the first victim of pre-election moulting of Tudjman's party by which it wishes to present itself as a sincere protector of pensioners - which was a quite successful trick in all the previous elections among this socially vulnerable group.

The joint trait in all these changes is that they are more than well founded, but that removals from office have nothing to do with qualifications of those who are removed or will soon have to leave. In fact, if that had been the criterion, majority of those who are the targets now would never have been nominated for the posts they had held until just recently, like, for example, Milan Vukovic who declared before he was nominated president of the Supreme Court that victims of aggression could not commit war crimes. This statement opened a break through which the guilt for war crimes was almost completely transferred from Naletilic, Martinovic and the like of them to all the Croats, and Hranjski equally contributed to it when he either did not take them to court or even if he did, it was in long and complicated trials aimed to conceal the criminals and not elimine them.

But, it is quite clear that Vukovic and Hranjski, like everybody else, worked exactly as badly as Tudjman had expected them to do, but now he can use their poor work he had agreed to as a reason for their removal. But, even if in case of the highest judicial institutions which are formally independent of the head of the state this can be swallowed, introducing changes in the government are on the verge of acrobacy. The government operates like some kind of an extended office of state chief Tudjman, so that any criticism addressed at the government equally refers to him. Therefore by announcing a significant reconstruction of the government he resorted to the explanation that this is done because of the excessive number of ministries, but that it was "very successful, especially last year".

This was underlined because some of the biggest scandals that happened last year were linked to certain ministries (the ones which will not be reconstructed, that is done away with. Minister of police Ivan Penic is still up to his neck in the mire of the scandal with tapping journalists which is certainly closely connected with frequent articles in newspapers in which it is claimed that while at this and even more at his previous post - that of the head of the privatisation fund - he assisted some of the greatest tycoons in plundering factories, trading and catering companies, etc. Perhaps just slightly less odium was roused by the minister of agriculture Zlatko Dominikovic, who transformed his ministry into a service of strictly chosen agricultural manufacturers, taking very big fees for it while agriculture in general was sinking deeper than ever.

Except for Penic and Dominikovic, there are also speculations about departure of the minister of finance Borislav Skegro, who is some sort of party treasurer of HDZ and who had stirred up rage of the citizens by introducing 22-per-cent value added tax, but he so abundantly filled the state budget that foreign loans are practically not needed any more. Should Skegro be removed, it will surely be presented as top evidence of new social policy of the ruling party, but rumour goes that the minister of finance has lost his position because his financial pump cannot pump in as much money as before. Along with these mentioned ones, there are speculatons about removal of a few other ministers: of the ecomony (Porges), immigration (Petrovic), tourism (Morsan)... the announced "reconstruction" of the government should be sought within this framework - that is, as reduction of the number of ministries. Everything else is a typical pre-election game, although it has never been played so nervously and in such a limited space.

MARINKO CULIC