Please enjoy the wonderful giant Easter Eggs that adorn some of the city and town squares in Croatia at this time of year as we rejoice in the resurrection of Jesus Christ! Be blessed! Happy Easter to you all! Ina Vukic
HAPPY EASTER! GLORIOUS CELEBRATION OF RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST ON STREETS OF CROATIA
March 30, 2024 by 16 Comments
Croatia: “Rivers of Justice Are Coming!?”
March 22, 2024 by 6 Comments
It’s been quite clear in my articles during the past twenty-three years, since the former communists took over the government in Croatia and then the Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ and Social Democratic Party/SDP alternated between themselves after every or every second four-year mandate, that political tragicomedy would suffocate any true rule of law and democracy. With that being the case, any caring political analyst or commentator must have surely in his or her mind visualised the personification of that political situation as some constant spinning-top toy we see toddlers playing with. Ending up with disbelief, vertigo, disappointment – screaming for help.
During those two decades and particularly in the past four years, the sessions in the Croatian Parliament resembled more a chicken coop in a wire cage placed at the centre of a circus tent. Throughout this time HDZ has, particularly during the past decade when Croatia became an EU member state, oscillated, and reinvented itself on the political spectrum from modern European centre-right to hard-line populist, growing in its autocratic nature and aggressive dismissal of opinions that criticised its work. SDP has been no better as it too oscillated and reinvented itself as pro-European while pandering to Russian communist back, becoming increasingly ‘progressive’ and leftist to the extreme. This especially so after it booted out in 2016 its party president (and former Prime Minister) Zoran Milanovic (current President of the country) with distressed trumpet calls of vote of no confidence as he failed to form a government.
In the climate heavily lined with parliamentary chamber rows and runaway insults between the government and opposition party representatives, as well as the media, nail-biting anticipation of triple-election was increasingly looming in Croatia. Anticipation of elections for Members of Croatian Parliament, for Members of European Parliament, and Presidential. As in a whirlwind, on 14 March 2024 Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic rushed in with his announcement for the dissolution of the parliament that would occur on 22 March 2024 (somewhat earlier than expected). Croatia’s president, on March 15 announced that general elections will be held in Croatia on Wednesday 17 April and in the so-called 11th Constituency for Croats abroad on 16th and 17th April, announcing a non-working day for Croatia and ignoring the needs of some 1 million voters living abroad who will not be eligible for a work-free day under the laws of countries they live. Equality of voting rights guaranteed by the Croatian Constitution – once again is thrown in the sewer! According to the information at hand this is the first time in 23 years that general elections will occur on a weekday, instead of Sunday!
As Plenkovic thus may have thought he was in control and confident of a win (with around 28% popularity survey!), accentuating his government’s successes (mainly those paid for by non-refundable EU money – that would come to Croatia regardless of who is in government), the push to overshadow SDP was evident. But one certainly cannot use the word “monotonous” or “boring” to describe Croatia’s mainstream political landscape – low and behold Milanovic stole the electoral “limelight” from Plenkovic! Just hours after announcing the general election dates, Milanovic dumped a political bomb that he would run as a candidate for SDP at parliamentary elections as a candidate for prime ministerial job; if SDP wins the elections, of course, and that he would resign as country’s president after the electoral win and in the meantime he would hold onto his job as President which, by the way, reportedly bans any activities with or for a political party!
Couple of days later, on 18 March 2024, Croatia’s Constitutional Court barred him from running in the elections as candidate until his presidential term ends in February 2025 or resign as president if he wished to run for parliamentary elections.
You can’t make this stuff up!
But then again, considering that Plenkovic as Prime Minister and Milanovic as President have been at loggerheads throughout their mandates, slinging insults at each other, undermining each other’s official roles and jurisdictions, perhaps this tragicomedy was the inevitable product of huge egos locking horns days in and days out.
On Friday, 15 March, HDZ party taunted Milanovic in a tweet “Milanović only motivated us to beat him and his SDP for the 3rd time! President @AndrejPlenkovic: “17. April is World Circus Day. And to make the circus even bigger, Milanović decided to go to the elections with #SDP”, saying his announcement had “motivated us to beat him and his SDP for the third time. Plenkovic added: “April 17 is World Circus Day. And to make the circus even bigger, Milanovic decided to join the elections with SDP.”
It’s a shame there is no tweet talking about the circus of HDZ government doing nothing on ensuring that the human right of suffrage is enjoyed by Croatian citizens living abroad as it is by those living in Croatia as prescribed by the country’s Constitution.
This tragicomedy HDZ and SDP have created must be wound down, packed away and tossed into a bottomless abyss together with the symbols of former communist Yugoslavia! It is a situation of intolerable incompetence, arrogance, and disdain where nobody except those singing to their tunes can advance in life and profession on basis of merit.
There are over 170 registered political parties in Croatia. In the week beginning 25 March 2024, once the electoral commission published lists of candidates, we shall know which will be running for parliament. Given that Milanovic has implied in his public appearance that he will continue with his plans for participating as candidate at parliamentary elections, seemingly in defiance of the abovesaid Constitutional Court’s decision, and given his 19 March Facebook cryptic message “Rivers of justice are coming” (reminding us of a hit song celebrating Josip Broz Tito during communist Yugoslavia, 1985, “Rivers of Justice”), unless both HDZ and SDP lose at the election so much that they cannot form even a minority government, the Croatian people are facing a grim future of more political circus and “rivers” that will erase almost everything they bled for – democracy with the rule of law while living standards erode further. The level of bad and twisted to which the president, prime minister and many politicians in Croatia have sunk to has reached rock bottom. The Croatian people deserve much better! I hope that the meaning in the phrase used “Rivers of justice are coming” will mean finally justice for the Croatian people and for what they fought for and died for in the 1990’s Homeland War – no more HDZ or SDP leading the government. At least for a decade thank you! Ina Vukic
“Handbook for Croatian Politics”
March 14, 2024 by 5 Comments
With regards to his latest book “Handbook for Croatian Politics” (Priručnik za Hrvatsku Politiku) Croatia’s world-renowned academic, professor emeritus Matko Marusic from the city of Split said: “I am very interested in politics because I believe that it has a significant impact on our lives, perhaps most on the lives of those who say: ‘I am not interested in politics’. But I have noticed that people talk a lot about politics, most of the time fiercely and with conviction, without knowing the basic facts that lie behind the topic they are talking about. So, I got tired of saying: ‘But you forgot this…’, ‘You didn’t take into account that…’, ‘Don’t you know that…’ so I decided to write a handbook of basic knowledge that one should have in order to engage in political discussions. I don’t know if the ‘Handbook’ will fulfill the function I intended for it, but I don’t know better than that. However, I was the first one to find the book useful because I learned a lot while putting it together.”
Prof. dr. Matko Marusic published this new book late last year and it represents to the view of many, including myself, a very significant piece of work that spans over 600 pages. It is a book that is easy to read despite its large size. The reader will find a great deal of useful information in this book. With all this and more the book is sold online by Knjižara Ljevak for 32 euro, which is a most reasonable and considerate price given the wealth of knowledge it brings to the reader. Given that new parliamentary elections in Croatia have just been announced, to held late April to mid-May 2024 (date to be announced by Croatia’s President in the coming couple of weeks), introducing here the content of this book will hopefully motivate many voters to vote on election day. The voter turnout at elections in Croatia has been quite poor for the past two decades and therefore, whichever government or whatever seat in parliament is thus filled are not convincingly representing most people. Minority governments have been a trend because of that and this needs to change.
It is a fact that Croatia has been under a constant political crisis during the past couple of decades particularly laced with overwhelming scandals of corruption and nepotism. It appeared as if voting at elections made no difference, that situation will not improve for the better. Hence, many failed to vote at elections, forgetting that voting at elections does and can move mountains for the people and bring change. Croatians need only to remember the Independence Referendum of May 1991 in which almost 94% of eligible voters to secede from communist Yugoslavia.
This handbook has 24 chapters divided into four categories: “Croatian political history”, “Croatian neighbours”, “Independent Republic of Croatia” and “What should we do, then?”. The extensive index contains about 1000 terms at the end and is divided into five parts: 1. Battles, wars, rebellions, and revolutions, 2. Documents, 3. Names, 4. Organisations, movements, bodies, and military units and 5. Crimes. This makes it easier to search for information. In addition, the text refers the reader to the pages that should be viewed when reading a particular topic. This book is a major piece of work by anyone’s standards, interesting and useful, and offers a huge number of unknown or relatively unknown data as well as those that have been forgotten or distorted, all of which are very important for Croatian history, politics, sociology, and economy.
For example, on Croatian political history the reader comes across interesting, little-known or perhaps forgotten facts or data such as:
- Unlike most medieval states and although it did not have full independence, Croatia was governed from 1273 to 1918 by the Croatian Parliament.
- Dalmatia was handed over to Italy by the Yugoslav (Serbian) government in the Treaty of Rapala in 1920, and Ante Pavelic had to confirm it in the Treaty of Rome in 1941.
- Punisa Racic, who in 1928, during the session of the National Assembly in Belgrade, killed Stjepan and Pavle Radic and Đura Basaricek, and seriously wounded Ivan Granđa and Dr. Ivan Pernar, was sentenced to prison, which he served in a hotel, with his own servants.
- Jewish municipalities, at least partially, operated in the territory of the NDH (World War Two Independent State of Croatia), and the Jewish Municipality in Zagreb operated until the very end of the war and its archive material has been preserved. The Croatian people massively and intensively protected the Jews. Miroslav Salom Freiberger, the Zagreb treasurer, was a great friend of Cardinal Alojzij Stepinac; they worked together to save the Jews and both refused to leave their peoples and go to safety, and both perished.
- In 1943, the Zagreb football clubs organised a “user” competition, from which all proceeds went to Hajduk from Split.
- Tito personally ordered the killing of the Croats at Bleiburg.
- When the Croatian Spring of 1971/72 was broken. More than two thousand Croats were arrested and sentenced, and more than 100,000 people were thrown out of their jobs, dismissed, removed, or socially degraded. As many as 50 journalists were sentenced to prison terms, and 172 journalists and publicists were “blacklisted”. Matica Hrvatska (non-government organisation promoting Croatian national and cultural identity since 1842) was shut down and its work was banned, and many of its members were imprisoned.
- Communist Yugoslavia declared bankruptcy in 1982.
In the part of the book that deals with the destruction of the Croatian State from within, Marušić talks, among other things, about “de-Tudjmanisation”, which aimed to criminalise the Homeland War and through fabricated and false accusations of war crimes against leading Croatian generals at the international criminal court in The Hague, and about public promotion incidents aimed at stigmatisation of Croats as Ustashas and criminals. That part of the book also talks about Yugoslavianism, UDBA, persistent Greater Serbia policy, attacks on Croatian education, unfavorable portrayals of the state of affairs in the country, and more. That chapter is extensive because it refutes the views of the main attackers of the Croatian State.
As part of this book the author has also delved into a SWOT analysis of Croatia in which he sees the following elements to weigh up in the analysis:
- Croatian STRENGTHS are: belonging to the West; patriotism; faith; geopolitical position and beauty of the country.
- WEAKNESSES: mentality of socialist idleness and weak work ethic; corruption; slow recovery of higher education; fragile economy; demography; internal social discord.
- OPPORTUNITIES: preserved environment; EU and NATO membership; and international reputation and cooperation (which Croatia has never had before).
- THREATS: Croatia should and can solve internal problems on its own, and the EU is helping it a lot.
An down-to-earth perspective on politics, political history, political intrigues and indicdents that shape a nation indeed; it’s today and tomorrow.
However, the true and tested reality remains and that is that Croatia cannot address effectively its internal and external threats without the massive help from its voters at elections. In reality, the EU is a cauldron of multitudes of differing political sides and pulls which can either be a threat or a benefit to a single member country like Croatia and I believe that Croatian voters are the single most important force that can make Croatia better for all, not just some.
Hence, I hope Croatian voters in particular will arm themselves with this book, or sections of it, or even with the very idea of doing their utmost in making sure their vote counts and head to the polling stations on election day 2024. Ina Vukic
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