Averting Yet Another Collapse Of Croatian Government

Croatian Prime Minister
Andrej Plenkovic
Photo: Damjen Tadic/ Hanza media

When upon my return from Croatia a few weeks ago I wrote about my observations on the state of the country one thing that rattled me a great deal was the extent to which the threatening bankruptcy of one private company (Agrokor) was shaking-up the whole country. Subsequently, Croatia was faced with an almost unprecedented, possibly ill-conceived move by the government to rush in new legislation that would enable it to take over the administration of the same company. Be that new law as it may, the Agrokor affair has created a monster that has reeled everyone into a storm of political possibilities and impossibilities.

As the phenomenon of turbulence would have it a rush of new wind either intensifies or stops devastation. The public revelation few days ago that Croatia’s finance minister Zdravko Maric is Agrokor’s former Executive Director for Strategy and Capital had sent the wheels of political winds into a wild spin, threatening the collapse of the government.

Presently, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic is making last-ditch attempts to save the country’s government from collapsing second time in six months after sacking three ministers from its government coalition MOST (Bridge coalition of independent lists) partner amidst their, as well as MOST’s parliament speaker Bozo Petrov’s insistence that minister Maric could no longer enjoy parliament’s confidence and must go. They allege that Maric was in the know about the appalling financial situation in Agrokor and may have contributed to the threatening bankruptcy while working in Agrokor and Prime Minister Plenkovic stands firmly behind his finance minister, prepared for an all-out political combustion that may swallow his government into the cavern of no return. Ministers summarily dismissed/sacked are Interior Minister Vlaho Orepic, Justice Minister Ante Sprlje and Environment and Energy Minister Slaven Dobrovic. But, these sacked ministers are digging their heels in and refusing to go quietly – spurred on undoubtedly by their MOST leader Bozo Petrov who – wrongly to my view – insists that Prime Minister has no powers to sack ministers and that such sacking is tantamount to breaches of the constitutional order.

It needs to be said that the current Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ led government was constructed on sharp and deep fault lines that include coalition with the MOST whose political currents had trailed a path of seeking reforms on basis of criticising the HDZ majority rather than putting forth concrete submissions for reforms through camaraderie and reasonable compromise if need be. Furthermore, MOST and its leader Petrov were instrumental in the bringing down of Croatia’s former government in June 2016. So, the current Government was always going to be susceptible to dramatic shifts in the political landscape particularly if one considers the real possibility that MOST and Petrov are about bringing instability to Croatia – a reminder of the way UDBA/ Yugoslav secret service operated and still operates even if Yugoslavia has ceased to exist more than a quarter of a century ago.

Whether the aftershocks of the current political crisis in Croatia will cause the government to collapse is yet to be seen, but one expects that Prime Minister Plenkovic will do the utmost in his power and knowhow to avoid it. It’s too early to say whether the parliament will render a vote of no confidence in finance minister Maric driven by Petrov, but even if it does a collapse of government does not necessarily follow.

Amidst current trade-offs and talks to avoid a government collapse indications are that any new HDZ’s minority government and its stability will depend on whether similar fault lines to the ones that are currently causing epic tremours appear in new coalitions away from MOST. Given the political leanings on the scene the players in a new refurbished government may come from an available political mosaic of smaller parties such as HNS (Croatian People’s Party) and perhaps the unpredictable HSS (Croatian Peasant Party), some lone political party such as Milorad Pupovac from SDSS/Independent Democratic Serb Party as well as the independent members of parliament.

The prospect of Milorad Pupovac from the Serb party entering into a new government coalition is, frankly, frightening and utterly destructive. The overwhelming sentiment among the Croatian people is that a Serb associated with still unresolved condemnation of Serb aggression against Croatia in 1990’s that had as one of its tasks to stop the creation of an independent Croatia should not be in government. This sentiment is completely justified in this era when Croatia must turn a page and start living as a truly independent Croatian state that gives no leverage of success to any undermining coming particularly from Serb leaders, who are more loyal to Serbia than to Croatia.

Should HNS/Croatian People’s Party be the one to boost the government’s survival prospects then one would expect that its former president Vesna Pusic retracts her past statements in which she falsely and maliciously accused Croatia of aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1990’s. Otherwise, any coalition between HDZ and HNS forming a government will be poisoned by Pusic’s extraordinarily evil statement. HDZ is the late president Franjo Tudjman’s party, it is the party that victory and Croatian independence are indebted to – a political marriage between that party and the party that still houses Pusic is unthinkable without Pusic’s public retraction of her vicious and false statement about aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina; and without her public apology.

If alliance between HDZ and HNS ensues without resolving the Pusic statement then this is likely to be a scenario when civil unrest becomes really dangerous. That would be the time when everything begins to get truly confusing and crazy. It will defeat a great deal of needed and possible reforms and ensure a crash and burning of political and economic climate starting in 2018.

An unthinkable prospect of Social Democratic Party/SDP forming alliances with view to forming a new government, thus avoiding new and snap general elections sits like a dagger in the chest.

“We will seek new partners to continue the government and ensure political and economic stability,” Prime Minister Plenkovic told reporters in Zagreb. “Should in the next days there be no possibility to form a new parliamentary majority, we are ready for new elections.”

In the 1960’s British Prime Minister Harold Wilson coined the phrase “a week is a long time in politics” and currently in Croatia it feels like an unpleasant, tense eternity. A government collapse at a time when a third option amidst two major parties’ leads has not yet clearly appeared on the horizon as a shoe-in, a certain winner at elections, would spell more of the same and fuel the vicious political circle that has not brought the reforms or changes needed for Croatia. It is at times of collapse that party loyalties become stubborn, no room nor will to look the other way and embrace new political forces even if these may hold the biggest yet promise that Croatia will survive as an independent Croatian state, free, determined and wilful in creating the economic atmosphere for prosperity and well-being. Ina Vukic