Agreement on New Election Law

Bottle of Champagne Opened Too Soon

AIM Zagreb, 30 May, 1999

A bottle of champagne has been opened and drunk after months of exhausting haggling, the ruling Croat Democratic Community (HDZ) and six opposition parties agreed about the model of the new election law, the agreement was immediately marked as historical, and messages of approval have arrived from the world, because the international community has persistently insisted on this agreement.

Therefore, according to the established principles of the new election law, Croatia will elect its new parliament according to the proportional system, the state will be divided into nine electoral districts, and in the tenth the so-called diaspora will vote by application of the "unfixed quota". This means that the number of elected deputies of the "emigrated Croats" will depend on the number of voters. Until now, 12 deputies were elected by the emigrants, and now if the number of voters does not change, if the same number of them votes like in the last elections, according to the new model, only three or four deputies will be elected by them.

By accepting the separate electoral district for "undomiciled Croats", the opposition has given up on its own, as it claimed, resolute demand that the list of candidates for diaspora be abolished, which was strongly supported by the international community. The opposition was against this list not only for principled reasons, but, it turned out mostly because it ensured in advance 10 per cent of the seats in the parliament for the HDZ. The international community insisted on abolishment of the list for diaspora because much fewer Croat emigrants voted for it than the Croats from Bosnia & Herzegovina, who are not diaspora at all. Participation of B&H Croats in the elections in Croatia is believed to be contrary to the Dayton peace accords and it is the remainder of the aspiration which saw Herzegovina as a part of Croatia.

For giving up on its main demand the opposition was compensated by certain other items of the agreement. It was agreed that the election law be passed in a package with the law on electoral districts (in order to prevent them from being formed only following the wishes of the ruling party), that the electoral committees be multiparty, and the electoral register be made available to the public three months prior to the elections, and that financing of the election campaign be transparent and limited (besides the money they will get from the state, every party can spend another two million kunas for the campaign, which for HDZ so far, as the well-informed claim, "was not enough even for breakfast"). As its most important achievement, the opposition boasts with the agreement on amendment of the law on Croatian Radio-Television (HRT) which until now operated as the ruling party media, and it will be transformed into a public institution. The date of the elections has not been agreed, but they will probably be scheduled for mid December.

However, just a day after the great agreement, information leaked in public that the ruling HDZ already had a prepared draft election law and that it would pass it regardless of whether the opposition would agree with it. Speculations also leaked that the ruling party might squeeze the possibility of voting by mail into the election law, which would greatly increase the number of voters, and therefrom the representatives of the so-called diaspora. There are warnings that changes in HRT should not be celebrated in advance. Passing of the new law need not necessarily mean anything because it is possible to postpone for ever the actual implementation or to distort it as it regularly happened, so that laws became better and the practice got worse. In any case, after having slept over it, the opposition claims that nothing is over yet, that - before the laws are passed, it is impossible to speak about a historical agreement. With very good reason, fear was aroused of being cheated again. The Croatian political scene is ruled by a serious crisis of confidence which cannot be overcome by a single glass of champagne.

Nevertheless, it is believed that the ruling party badly needs the agreement with the opposition. Relevant investigations show that there is no way in which HDZ can win the elections, and that it can preserve power only through some sort of coalition. According to results of the latest, third in a row poll of the Croatian electorate ordered by American International Republican Institute, 19 per cent of the Croats would at this moment vote for HDZ, 23 per cent for the Social Democratic Party, and the united opposition would win 49 per cent of the votes.

The total results confirm the already observed trends. Popularity of the ruling party is constantly declining. Last autumn it was equally popular as the Social Democrats, but in the meantime, SDP went up and HDZ went down, so that it is not the most powerful party any more. These trends are slow, but constant. For many reasons most of which are not the result of its internal qualities, the Social Democrats are emerging as the strongest party. Among the opposition - they have no rival. The Peasants' Party ranks second, but its electorate does not amount even to half of that of the SDP. Other parties of the opposition are mostly stagnant, they rank very low and might have great problems with the electoral threshold. Along with the Social Democrats and the Peasants, only the Croatian Social Liberal Party has more than the necessary minimum of 5 per cent of the votes in order to be represented in the parliament.

The poll also shows that the electorate is ready to generously award every form of association of the opposition. In the past six months, popularity of the opposition coalition has gone up by five per cent and simple majority is nowadays an easily attainable goal. But, on the other hand, the increase of the number of those who do not know who they would vote for is impressive. Every fourth Croat is nowadays - indecisive. It is alarming that their number has increased by almost 10 per cent in the past six months. Some analysts believe that this is an indication that there is a broad space to be filled by a third option, other claim that this is a sign of implicit criticism not only of the authorities but also of the opposition. The oppositionists have not managed to attract all those the ruling party has driven away. As potential abstainers, the indecisive ones are playing right into the hands of HDZ.

HDZ denies the results of the quoted investigation. The ruling party claims that the support it enjoyed has not significantly eroded, according to its own poll, it still enjoys the support of 37 per cent of the electorate. A part of the opposition ignores the conclusion that the Croats would like to see a united opposition in the elections. The opposition parties still have not agreed about the model of their relations, and with their several-month long haggling, they are keeping a large portion of the country in suspence. Such willy-nilly behavior, with a lot of public rivalry, raises discontent and fatigue among the public, but this still has no impact on the support of the voters, but probably this is mostly due to shameless actions of the ruling party.

The fact that it has entered the negotiations for establishment of the election model may be understood as a specific admission of weakness of the ruling party. While it felt sufficiently powerful, HDZ arrogantly established election rules on its own. It has never happened before that it negotiated with the opposition. The present step forward out of the ordinary is sometimes interpreted as the announcement of its end. The situation in Crotia indeed reminds of the circumstances which preceded big changes of those in power in Europe. But HDZ is not ready to withdraw from power, so in this party they believe the agreement with the opposition can help them survive. All things considered, they will try to use it as their investment into a large postelection coalition. The opposition parties publicly vow that neither pre-election nor post-election cooperation with HDZ is possible, but it is not sure that at least some of them will not change their opinion after the elections.

Should the opposition win the elections, cohabitation will be established in Croatia, because the mandate of the head of the state lasts for two years longer than that of the Assembly. Thanks to great power given to the president, Tudjman can practically block the operation of the parliament and the new government. It is believed that this is the reason why the main opposition parties are now mentioning the idea about cooperation with allegedly liberal members of HDZ, mostly having in mind foreign minister Granic and defence minister Miljavac. It seems that the international community, primarily the USA, support such a solution, because they separate the two ministers from the HDZ flock, and receive them with special and expressed attentiveness.

Minor opposition parties are against such combinations, first, because they think that the current ministers must share responsibility for the catastrophic results of HDZ rule, and second, they rightfully believe that dragging members of the current authorities into the new ones would make it impossible to draw a line under the past decade. It would be neither possible to settle accounts nor to make a clean cut. It would in fact be amnesty for HDZ. A large part of the public rejects such a possibility, they seek not only a change, but also responsibility, revision of ownership transformation, taking thieves to court... But that very public will give its votes to parties which have started launching the idea about the old ministers in the new government. Of course, they will vote for them not because of such ideas but because they are the only ones capable of defeating HDZ. This is a specific Croatian paradox. The majority part of the Croats who desire a change will support the opposition which can ensure victory, but it is questionable whether in this way their wish for a definite change of the authorities will be fulfilled.

JELENA LOVRIC