GLAVAS FOR THE SECOND TIME DISTRICT GOVERNOR

AIM Zagreb, 8 March, 1999

Rarely do serious political falls end with a triumphant return, except when the fall is just apparent and if the politician normally lived after his political death. This is the only possible way to explain the re-entrance into political orbit of the "naughty boy" of Croatian politics, Branimir Glavas, who was last Wednesday re-elected governor of Osijek-Baranja district, after he had been forced to leave this post in October 1997. In intimate circles, after the fall, Glavas used to say that Tudjman would rather give Dinamo (the most popular football team renamed into "Croatia") back its name than give him back the post of the district governor, but in the end he lived to return to this so long desired and dear to him office. When in October 1997 he was forced to leave this post - partly due to pressure exerted by the international community which believed him to be the main obstacle to completion of the process of peaceful reintegration, and partly due to his serious clash with prime minister Matesa concerning the state purchasing price of wheat, privatisation of Slavonian Bank and other obstructions of the government decisions - Glavas saw to it that he be replaced by a person he would be able to influence. He chose the anonymous head of district financial services, Anica Horvat, believing that he would be able to manipulate her. But, as power is sweet, his successor also felt its attractiveness and soon after, at first silent and then increasingly open discord and conflicts broke out between the former and the new district governor.

Glavas's political, party, economic and media infrastructure he had been establishing for years remained intact after his departure from the post, so he could remove Anica Horvat whenever he pleased. After nine months, having realised that she could do nothing, in the beginning of July last year, she submitted resignation, and Glavas again did his best that she be replaced by somebody who would keep the post for him, until a convenient moment came. He picked Srecko Lovrincevic, one of the founders of the Croat Democratic Community (HDZ) in Osijek, a person with no political ideals and great ambition. But, he also refused to do what he was told for long, so it was just a matter of time when he would be forced to withdraw. Tudjman's prolonged absence from public life, which was officially explained by the president's flue and which once again stirred up speculations about his seriously failing health, led to the struggle for taking best possible positions in his immediate surroundings.

Chairman of the Croatian state assembly, Vlatko Pavletic, who has not discharged his duty for the past two months because of a serious heart surgery and who in case the president of the Republic is prevented to work (or dies), replaces him until the next presidential elections, offered unexpectedly a chance to ambitious Vladimir Seks, vice chairman of the assembly, to get hold of the post of the president of the Republic in case of deterioration of Tudjman's illness. As one of the main Glavas's supporters in Zagreb (especially after the death of former minister of defence Gojko Susak with whom he had tribal connections from Herzegovina), Seks realised that the fact that the president was preoccupied with his illness and general consternation that rules Pantovcak in the past few weeks were a perfect background for reinstating Glavas at the key office in Slavonia.

Indeed, reinstating of Glavas in the office of the district governor resembled a small military coup d'etat. Members of the district assembly were summoned to the session during the night before it took place, the opposition had no time to nominate its own candidate, and everything took place so quickly that Glavas - still formally in the uniform of a general of the Croatian army - took the post of the district governor again. His election has to be ratified by Tudjman, but it is hard to believe that Croatian president, even if he wants to, will have the strength to oppose this act. The re-established axis Glavas - Seks is now quite powerful, and Tudjman - even if his concentration were better than it is at the moment - has no other solution.

According to newspaper polls conducted in the past weeks, of all the districts in Croatia (except for that of Istria) HDZ has the least support in Osijek-Baranja district. That these polls are reliable was confirmed by recent local elections for municipal committees - politically insignificant

• but indicative as a measure of the disposition of the public. The opposition, headed by the Social Democratic Party (SDP), on a representative sample of 30 thousand voters, won 60 per cent of votes and beat HDZ hollow. Dreadful economic situation and utterly demolished economy, enormous unemployment and general hopelessness cannot be justified by consequences of the war any more. People have become aware that the policy of HDZ caused more damage than the war, and personification of that policy in Slavonia was Glavas in person. Therefore, his apparently triumphant comeback may very quickly turn into a fiasco. Glavas is now offered to the public as the savior of what he had so profoundly ruined and for some time he will be able to use his predecessors as the pretext (Anica Horvat, Srecko Lovrincevic). But, it will be necessary to show results soon, and at the time of general economic collapse in Croatia nobody is able to do it any more. It will be even more difficult for Glavas - with stark political power, with no influence on the Slavonian Bank (which has in the meantime, due to inflow of foreign capital, completely slipped out of his hands), he will not be able to transfer money from fund to fund in order to put out fires which at the time of his first term in office he was able to control.

High Slavonian officials of the SDP used to warn that the peasants' rebellion headed by Antun Laslo which is a constant threat to Matesa's government (sacrificing minister of agriculture Dominikovic has not silenced the peasants' discontent), was in fact manipulated by Glavas. He won a great deal of support from the peasants when he opposed the low state purchasing price of wheat, determining autonomously a higher price for his district than the one guaranteed by the government. The peasants see in Glavas a man who is capable of protecting their interests, and he sees his voters in them, so this "natural symbiosis" explains best the speculations that the rebellious peasants are just puppets on strings in Glavas's puppet show for Matesa. Indeed, on the eve of Glavas's "coup" which brought him back to the post of Osijek-Baranja district governor, peasants headed by Antun Laslo, self-proclaimed Slavonian Matija Gubac (leader of the great Croatian peasants' rebellion in 1573) were announcing one of their biggest protests. They threatened they would block all Slavonian roads, which - had it been done - would have been a great challenge fro Matesa: since he had removed the minister of agriculture from office just a fortnight ago, the prime minister would have been directly in the line of fire. It so happened that on the very day when Glavas took over control of the district the peasants cancelled the announced protest. In this way Glavas clearly showed Matesa that he controlled the peasants and that he could always use their discontent and direct it against the government.

But although he had pulled the strings from the shadow while he was absent from the office of the political head of the district, acting a general of the Croatian army and riding around idly in an expensive Audi car with army licence plates, he will learn what the actual conditions are like the centre of which he has fallen into by his own free will. Ruins which he had left raiding the district with his party sympathizers, are a perfect setting for his political sarcophagus. As a skilfull manipulator and exceptional demagogue, he can build his political role only on premises which were the foundation of his destructive philosophy - constant conflicts and political devastation which aspired to more and more elevated causes. Therefore, it will be very interesting to observe the first moves Glavas will make. Although when he stepped in the seat of the district administration again he pathetically appealed on all opposition parties to participate "with their best men" in his authorities, presenting himself as a transformed person who is "not an idealist any more, but a realist" and who definitely believes that "the time of bitter wounds and bitter herbs has passed", it is hard to believed that Glavas can change his style of ruling and comprehension of power. And when he takes off his general's uniform and replaces it with civilian clothes, his commissar's methods will remain. His model which he pledges allegiance to again is at the very top, and he dreams that some day - with the uniform or without it - he may climb up to these heights.

DRAGO HEDL