Bozo Petrov – Croatia, the War, and the Future

New Croatian Government Exposes Opposition’s Communist Killjoys of Democracy And Progress

January 24, 2016 by inavukic 40 Comments

Government of Croatia 2016 Photo: www.vlada.hr Prime Minister: Tihomir Oreskovic First Deputy Prime Minister: Tomislav Karamarko Deputy Prime Minister: Bozo Petrov Minister Internal Affairs: Vlaho Orepic Minister Foreign and European Affairs: Miro Kovac Minister of Finances: Zdravko Maric Minister of Defense: Josip Buljevic Minister of Justice: Ante Sprlje Minister of Administration: Dubravka Jurlina-Alibegovic Minister of Agriculture: Davor Romic Minister of Environment Protection: Slaven Dobrovic Minister of Economy: Tomislav Panenic Minister Veterans' Affairs: Mijo Crnoja Minister of Construction/Building: Lovro Kuscevic Minister of Business: Darko Horvat Minister of Maritime, Traffic and Infrastructure: Oleg Butkovic Minister of Regional Development and EU Funds: Tomislav Tolusic Minister for Social Politics and Youth: Bernardica Juretic Minister for Tourism: Anton Kliman Minister for Employment and Retirement Funds: Nada Sikic Minister for Health: Dario Nakic Minister for Science, Education and Sport: Predrag Sustar Minister for Culture: Zlatko Hasanbegovic

Government of Croatia 2016
Photo: http://www.vlada.hr
Prime Minister: Tihomir Oreskovic
First Deputy Prime Minister: Tomislav Karamarko
Deputy Prime Minister: Bozo Petrov
Minister Internal Affairs: Vlaho Orepic
Minister Foreign and European Affairs: Miro Kovac
Minister of Finances: Zdravko Maric
Minister of Defense: Josip Buljevic
Minister of Justice: Ante Sprlje
Minister of Administration: Dubravka Jurlina-Alibegovic
Minister of Agriculture: Davor Romic
Minister of Environment Protection: Slaven Dobrovic
Minister of Economy: Tomislav Panenic
Minister Veterans’ Affairs: ~~Mijo Crnoja~~ (Resigned 28/01/2016)
Minister of Construction/Building: Lovro Kuscevic
Minister of Business: Darko Horvat
Minister of Maritime, Traffic and Infrastructure: Oleg Butkovic
Minister of Regional Development and EU Funds: Tomislav Tolusic
Minister for Social Politics and Youth: Bernardica Juretic
Minister for Tourism: Anton Kliman
Minister for Employment and Retirement Funds: Nada Sikic
Minister for Health: Dario Nakic
Minister for Science, Education and Sport: Predrag Sustar
Minister for Culture: Zlatko Hasanbegovic

BIOGRAPHIES/CVs of Croatia’s new Government officials can be found HERE

It took 14 hours of presentation of Tihomir Oreskovic’s new centre-right cabinet for the new government and its program and discussions in the Croatian Parliament on Friday 22 January 2016 for the same government to earn a majority vote of confidence. The “deed” was done close to Midnight – at just after 11 pm the vote was cast: out of 149 members present 83 voted for, 61 against and 5 abstained while 2 members were absent. Tihomir “Tim” Oreskovic is Croatia’s new Prime Minister while the leader of HDZ/Croatian Democratic Union Tomislav Karamarko is the First Deputy Prime Minister, the Deputy being Bozo Petrov, leader of the Most/Bridge coalition of independents. Immediately after the vote in the parliament, Oreskovic and 22 members of his cabinet were sworn in inside the parliament.

Oreskovic inherits an economy recovering from a six-year recession and grappling with one of the highest public-debt burdens in the European Union, the results of years of political resistance to overhauling the economy and installing democratic practices in public administration as opposed to those inherited from five decades of communist totalitarian regime of former Yugoslavia. The main tasks for the new government will be to repair the country’s public finances, usher in and install economic growth, attract new investors into Croatia, secure an upgrade of credit rating from junk status, reduce high unemployment, grapple with the suffocating influx of refugees/migrants and, hopefully, tackle the unfinished business of eradicating the matters that negatively impact on Croatian unity and prosperity and which are associated with the communist totalitarian regime of former Yugoslavia and its remnants that continue poisoning democratic advances in the society and its structures.

Heads of New Croatian Government
From left: Bozo Petrov, Deputy PM, Tomislav Karamarko, First Deputy PM
and Tihomir Oreskovic, Prime Minister
Photo; Sanjin Strukic/Pixsell

“I am ready to take over the challenges… We should be ready to make difficult decisions,” Oreskovic told the parliament in Zagreb ahead of the vote.

His “pledge to cut the budget deficit and secure better credit ratings has won investors’ blessing,” Bloomberg reports.

Much of the operational task of repairing the state finance and restoring the economy will fall to the new finance minister, Zdravko Maric (a state secretary in the finance ministry during a previous HDZ government and in the past four years worked as a senior executive in Croatia’s largest company by earnings, food concern Agrokor, and was in charge of capital markets) and the new economy minister, Tomislav Panenic (the head of the eastern municipality of Tompojevci and a Most/Bridge coalition representative). They will have to cope with public debt near 90% of GDP and a 2015 budget deficit expected to come to around 4.5 % of GDP.

With more than 600,000 refugees/migrants passing through Croatia since mid-September 2015 and influx continuing despite the freezing winter weather the task of saving Croatia from being incapacitated and clogged up from the sheer numbers of people moving through, remaining a while…will indeed remain on the agenda for the foreseeable future.

Minister Zlatko Hasanbegovic (left)
Minister Mijo Crnoja (right) (resigned/28 Jan)

The appointments of Zlatko Hasanbegovic, a notable historian at the Institute for Social Research “Ivo Pilar”, as the minister of culture and Mijo Crnoja, a retired colonel of the Croatian army, as minister for veterans’ affairs have given rise to unsavoury protests by civic groups and the Social Democrats opposition in particular.

As expected, given that the Social Democrats or former Yugoslav Communists have lost government they and their ideological partners from the media have mounted an ideological lynch against the new government, branding it fascist, Ustashe – attempting to place the new government into what’s often referred to as the darkness of the WWII era. All this in concentrated efforts to try and save the communist totalitarian regime of Yugoslavia from its deserved condemnation and banishment from today’s democracy. These protesters call themselves antifascists but if anything they were and are far from the true and noble antifascism. It’s Hasanbegovic’s 2015 televised opinion in which he said that the only time, the only war in which Croatians were true victors was the 1990’s Homeland War and that Yugoslav antifascism was/is nothing more than a platitude that has caused the protests against him. In the parliament on Friday 22 January 2016 the Social Democrat opposition branded him a pro-Ustashi and a denier of antifascism and, furthermore, sparked protests against him in a street or two. Reacting, the leader of Hasanbegovic’s HDZ party, now First Deputy Prime Minister of Croatia, Tomislav Karamarko, said that it was high time Croatia differentiates between the totalitarian communist regime of former Yugoslavia and antifascism, that communists of Croatia (Yugoslavia) were not antifascists.

Bravo, Karamarko – the truth gets heard from high places.

Hasanbegovic defended his opinion and said that all his critics should read his works in full and not take words out of context. “They all abuse the concept of antifascism, and every serious historian knows that the concept can be fluid because various meanings can be ascribed to it. Stalin, Tito and Pol Pot were antifascists and so was the American General Patten, mentioned by the parliamentarians who do not want to teach history. We are not talking about an abstract antifascism but about the Yugoslav totalitarian inheritance. The modern Croatian stated has emerged as contrast to Yugoslav communism. And the fundamental Croatian constitutional values – democracy, parliamentarianism, independence, freedom and human rights – are in perfect opposition to the Yugoslav totalitarian heritage. I have been expressing my views and opinions about Titoism publicly, with scientific and professional responsibility and I do not see one reason why I should change one single comma to my statements.”

Well said Hasanbegovic and Karamarko – it is high time that the communist scum from WWII and after it be placed where they belong: away from antifacism and into the dungeons of contempt and condemnation.

The new veterans affairs minister Mijo Crnoja (I’m so pleased to know the man I wrote about in my previous post has made it to Minister!) attracted hateful comments and protests from the same camp: Social Democrats and Yugoslav communism nostalgics. His reported plan to compile a register of traitors of Croatian national interests and aggressors against Croatia is the thorn in their eyes – of course it would be – they see themselves on that register. Hence, they brand Crnoja a dictator, oppressor and that his plans for these lists spell terror. Communist League (today’s Social Democrats) walked out of Croatian parliament in 1991 in protest against the proposed vote to secede from communist Yugoslavia and make Croatia an independent democratic state and they have been undermining that Croatian freedom for a quarter of a century – of course they will fight with all their might to avoid communism being shown up for what it truly was and is: a political force that is evil and that should be buried for once and for all.(NOTE: Crnoja resigned as minister on 28 January 2016 amidst unproven allegations from the communist inclined opposition of improper conduct regarding his registered abode where he was supposed to but had not yet built his house and registered a shed as his residence!)

The new government is made up of a number of political novices including the Prime Minister Tihomir “Tim” Oreskovic, but together with the politically experienced colleagues they are all, as Oreskovic describes, “high-quality people from the business sector, the academic community and the public sector. They are ‘Tim’s Team’”.

Framework for Transforming Croatia
January 2016

Despite some minor naturally occurring “teething problems” the new government composed of different political groups has or may encounter as it gets down to work it is difficult to predict how successful this new government will be but if its focus on professionalism and intended reforms rather than political maneuvering are anything to go by then it’s future looks solid and promising. As to the protests and hateful outbursts coming out of the opposition parties and former communists and their sympathisers one could say it’s a given that any parliamentary or government opposition anywhere in the world in any democracy has the job of opposing anything and almost everything the government or its officials say and of making a great deal of noise, throwing negative lights at the government but what occurred in Croatia on Friday 22 January and days preceding it, and after, has nothing to do with healthy democratic discourse to benefit a betterment of citizens’ lives and everything to do with continued desperate efforts to cover up communist crimes of the former Yugoslav lot. Croatia’s parliamentary opposition, of centre-left persuasion, isn’t showing signs of intending to act as a shadow government that works for the betterment of citizens’ lives and their standard of living. As they assess the reasons why they lost the elections they are becoming noticeably bitter, twisted, unhappy killjoys of democracy because they are doing everything they can to disrupt enjoyment of democracy and the business of a democratic government, which of course, in this case would include the clearing up of past communist ways that stifle progress. As an example, Prime Minister’s Powerpoint presentation in parliament of his new government’s plan to transform Croatia for the better included a pyramid of priorities and the Social Democrat Ingrid Anticevic-Marinovic held it up in an envious rage saying that all it needed was the eye at the top to tell people what it really was: a Masonic pyramid; insinuating evilly that “Masons” have taken over in Croatia. Oh, I do often admire the stamina of the majority of Croatian people for tolerating political idiots such as Anticevic-Marinovic without contracting stomach ulcers. Undoubtedly, because of the former communists within the left and centre-left political persuasion democracy in Croatia has since Croatia’s independence from communist Yugoslavia had a fragile existence and poor development and proliferation into every aspect of daily life and it’s time that the former Yugoslav communism is called a criminal regime, not just totalitarian and definitely not referred to as an antifascist movement a moment longer. It’s a good sign the latter is being reverberated from the mouths of members of the new government in Croatia. Croatia does not only need an economic transformation it also needs a transformation of daily living into democratic rights and responsibilities and that can only be achieved through decisive rejection of any aspects of former Yugoslav communism as partners in strengthening democracy. Lustration is a must for Croatia. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: antifascism, Bozo Petrov, Communism, Croatia, Croatian Democratic Union, Croatian new government, democracy, HDZ, Most, Tihomir Oreskovic, Tomislav Karamarko

Croatia On Cusp Of Real Progress Despite Undermining

January 6, 2016 by inavukic 33 Comments

From Left: Bozo Petrov, leader Most/Bridge
Tihomir Oreskovic, Prime Minister designate
Tomislav Karamarko, Leader HDZ
Photo: Jurica Galoic/PIXSELL

Timothy Less (a UK based political analyst on Eastern Europe according to LinkedIn profile in which he claims that his “primary role is running the Nova Europa political risk consultancy which helps businesses and international organisations to understand the impact of politics on their interests in Eastern Europe” ) wrote 5 January in International Policy Digest that with its new coalition government Croatia is embarking on a political experiment which, his article suggests, is destined to fail!

“Croatia is embarking on a political experiment: a coalition government comprising the conservative Croatian Democratic Party (HDZ) and the insurgent Most party, led by a non-partisan prime minister, Tihomir Oreskovic, a businessman who has spent much of his life in Canada,” Timothy Less writes and continues: “…If all now goes according to Most’s (Bridge coalition of independents that is forming government with conservative HDZ ) plan, a reformist leader (Tihomir Oreskovic) with a track record of success in business will start to extricate Croatia from its long-standing economic malaise, marked by slow growth, high unemployment and dangerous levels of both public and private indebtedness… However, things may not turn out in the way that Most hopes. For one thing, Oreskovic will struggle to impose his authority. Not only is he a political unknown, but the party he represents is already losing its power base. Many of Most’s supporters voted to change Croatian politics and have instead seen Most put one of the establishment parties into power. If social media is a reliable guide, these supporters are already abandoning the party…”

Timothy Less goes further and prognosticates utter doom and gloom for Croatia in 2016 seemingly because – he suggests – the larger part of the new governing coalition, HDZ, will not – he says – want to be in government with Most/Bridge coalition for too long and will “spend the next few months picking squabbles with Most, distancing itself from controversial policies and reaching out to the key constituencies whose support it must win over ahead of the next ballot.” He further claims that Tihomir Oreskovic, the Prime Minister designate, will “struggle to control a cabinet comprised mainly of HDZ ministers and a parliament in which Most has just 18 (out of 151) seats,” and says that “2016 is likely to be a dismal period in Croatian politics, characterized by ineffective government and an incoherent policy agenda as the different parts of the coalition pull in different directions.”

A similarly biased analysis on governance value and immediate political flop that appointing of Tihomir Oreskovic as Prime Minister of Croatia will supposedly mean for the country was recently written by Tomislav Jakic, a journalist based in Zagreb Croatia, whose article “The Victory of Norval” not only assumes (like Timothy Less) that lack of political party alliance or belonging in a government head spells doom and gloom and inability to control the politicians in parliament, but it maliciously and wrongfully asserts that Croats living abroad and those living in Croatia are not equally Croatian. The latter platform is the hateful stand promoted by communists of former Yugoslavia and many subscribing to the left or centre-left political mood in Croatia today and it aspires to undermine the unity of all Croats – those in Croatia and those in diaspora.

“…Norval has defeated Zagreb,” writes Jakic, “The diaspora has overpowered the so-called homeland Croatia. All the citizens of the Republic of Croatia who were born in it, worked in it and earned their daily bread in it honestly are offended and humiliated because a man, although born in Croatia, but had lived abroad for such a long time (mostly in Canada) that he even does not speak well his mother language, is being brought to them as their Prime Minister. And that the immediate message to all from Croatia, to all who have earned their professional knowledge in Croatian schools and universities and applied them here and in the world, is that they are incapable, that there is not a single person living in Croatia capable of being a Prime Minister…” wrote Jakic.

This article by Jakic is not to be taken lightly – it is a serious attack on democracy and equal opportunity for all citizens of Croatia (no matter where they live in the world) to advance their life and professional and political circumstances as best their merit permits. It represents a loud element of a cancer that works at deteriorating the unifying fabric of all Croats in the world and as a suffocating force whose primary role is to disable and render ineffective all attempts to bring the essential reforms into Croatian economy, public administration, justice…so that it finally moves further away from the communism from which it stems. Tomislav Jakic’s said article represents the discrimination that anti-discrimination laws exist for – it is an appalling behaviour coming out of a pen of a journalist.

Timothy Less and Tomislav Jakic, and all others who use “old” measures to predict the future under “new” measures, appear to disregard the important fact that since it broke away from communist Yugoslavia in pursuit of democracy 25 years ago Croatia has had elected politicians only at the helm of its governments and these politicians failed to bring about the necessary changes and reforms essential to a well-functioning, just democracy that offers equal-opportunity to all of its citizens in contributing to its prosperity. Political suitability, protectionism, political and economic and public administration and judicial corruption had lost ground somewhat during those 25 years but not enough to mark real progress. Strong reforms are required in Croatia on all fronts of public administration especially, much stronger than those that had occurred. The idea of such reforms is not popular but it is the agenda that is seeing the formation of a new government.

I for one will always barrack for an opposition to a government because a parliamentary opposition has a very important role to play in the progress of public and citizen’s life but opposition based on ideological or discriminatory outbursts that are utterly unfair to a human being, not only a citizen of a country, is something that is abhorrent to me.

The government formed in Croatia is likely to be the one with the main goal of achieving the needed, albeit unpopular, major reforms and as such it is not likely to be popular with everyone but one can safely say that most Croats recognise the need for major reforms. Some people may not like it but they do recognise the need for major reforms and, therefore, there is a politically impacting chance that many who do not like the major reforms announced would ultimately be convinced of the benefits of those reforms. Most/Bridge coalition says that it is adamant it wants to govern in coalition with HDZ/Croatian Democratic Union and in this to have an important input into the key government departments/ ministries, such as justice and internal affairs that are essential in achieving the needed reforms. Sweeping reforms to public administration that will likely see a rather notable reduction of government administration and departments and red tape in order to further ease economic and investment growth as well as administrative processes involved in daily living are being flagged.

There is an underlying truth unfolding in the current political resolve of forming the new government in Croatia and that resolve has a great deal to do with the firm intent to effectuate the unpopular reforms that are needed, to bring home the reality of the well-worn although not always warming idiom: “No pain, no gain!”. Good luck, I say – about time! So many habits and stifling administrative processes and attitudinal elements from communist Yugoslavia still exist in Croatia and they must be rooted out. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Bozo Petrov, Croatia new government, Croatia news, Croatian Democratic Union, HDS, Most, reforms in Croatia, Tihomir Oreskovic, Timothy Less, Tomislav Jakic, Tomislav Karamarko

Croatia’s Conservative HDZ Say They Cannot Participate in Divvying-up Loot

December 20, 2015 by inavukic 22 Comments

Croatia’s new government
will come either as a result of political blackmail
or new elections

A day two before Christmas 2015 Croatia just may be put out of misery and torture if the president announces new elections!

Ever since the 8 November 2015 general election results which gave no political coalition the majority needed to form a government Croatia’s political battlefield has taken on the dynamics of nothing less than the engrossingly dramatic and twisted TV series “Game of Thrones” (many episodes of which were actually filmed in Croatia). The Most or Bridge coalition, that holds the decisive number of seats with which a government could be formed with either the centre-right HDZ or the centre-left SDP, has through its leader Bozo Petrov been insisting on forming a tripartite government, combining both HDZ and SDP and having a non-party member – a professional – Prime Minister! I personally am not aware that being a Prime Minister was a profession one trained for and stayed in as a matter of career choice, but Petrov most likely means a person who is a proven professional in a recgonised and, hopefully, relevant field such as economy, business development, justice, law etc.
Whatever Petrov and the Bridge coalition mean it does not matter for it simply cannot work simply because democracy is much about different political persuasions competing for votes through offering better or competitive deals and better life to the citizens.

More important, Croatian hard-won democracy cannot and must not compromise itself by permitting such experiments as those insisted upon by the Bridge coalition.

Bozo Petrov, Bridge coalition
Thinks everything
will be solved within 24 hours of Saturday night!

Bozo Petrov and the Bridge coalition called second meeting on Saturday 19 December where all three party presidents (SDP’s Zoran Milanovic, The Bridge’s Bozo Petrov and HDZ’s Tomislav Karamarko) were supposed to iron out the details and announce the name of the new Prime Minister designate. Furthermore, ahead of the meeting Petrov announced that by Tuesday 22 December Croatia would either have a new government or an announcement for new elections. HDZ president, Tomislav Karamarko left the meeting just 10 minutes in.

HDZ President Tomislav Karamarko
refuses to be blackmailed or
forced into signing dodgy documents
Refuses to join a tripartite government
based on unclear framework and guidelines
He prefers new elections to a government formed
in less than clear or honest circumstances

Karamarko said he could not sign the document the Bridge coalition was asking both parties to sign and hence decided to leave and let Bridge and SDP continue with negotiations if they want to: “We believe this document is a messy and confusing coalition contract in which no mechanisms are set and there are too many unknowns. It all comes down to how to split the loot, distribute seats in public companies etc” he stated.

Judging from media reports SDP and the Bridge continued talks after HDZ president left the meeting, Bridge, by this act, seems to have ditched the idea of forming a tripartite government it tortured the Croatian public with during the past month. At the end of the meeting Petrov announced that HDZ was out of the race for the government now, since Karamarko refused to sign the document Bridge coalition prepared and considered essential for the formation of government.

SDP president Zoran Milanovic
will do anything to stay in government
within a week he turned from rejecting Bridge
and tripartite idea outright
to sucking up to Bridge in order to get
a few government portfolios under
a joint government with those
he rejected outright days before!
A political prostitute not to be trusted
with Croatian democracy and freedom.

“I hope we will have a designate Prime Minister by Tuesday” said Bozo Petrov stressing that HDZ is definitely out of the race now and that Bridge is still insisting that the designate Prime Minister be someone from their party or a non-party person – but must be a professional Prime Minister! Zoran Milanovic stated that SDP would insist that Prime Minister Delegate should be Bozo Petrov from Bridge coalition. Bozo Petrov, on the other hand, while appearing coy and negating he wants to be the next PM does reiterate whenever he can “Never say never”!
While at the end of Saturday’s meeting Petrov stated that “Everything will be solved within 24 hours”, one can expect one of the two possibilities:

Bridge will form a government with SDP/ Social democrats and eat its words in shame that they would only work with a tripartite government – the only condition under which their proposed sweeping reforms could be made;

Croatia is set for new elections sometime in January/February 2016.

Certainly, HDZ, the relative winner of majority seats at 8 November elections (but not enough to form a government), has been reported to favour new elections. I personally would support that for it’s not just me that am skeptical and cautious about the likelihood of a tripartite government – an all-inclusive government – where there is no shadow government, no opposition, no prospect of critique and positive advancement that can result from it. It would be such a victory for Croatian democracy if the president of Croatia Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic put an end to this shameful political blackmail torturing the Croatian public and evidently emanating from the Bridge coalition and put Croatia on the road to new elections quick-smart. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)