Croatian Democratic Union – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Croatia: Communism Camouflaging as Liberalism and/or Conservatism?

October 15, 2022 by inavukic 6 Comments

Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic seems increasingly irritated by the fact that the Anti-corruption Parliamentary Council, intended for monitoring progress of fight against corruption, is largely comprised of parliamentary opposition members who have wowed to investigate further the biggest heist, theft, of the century associated with the national INA petroleum company. In the past several days he has threatened to come down against anyone trying to bring down his government, even those seeking the truths about national affairs affecting all citizens, with all repressive measures available to him and accused the opposition in the past week, without any proof or evidence, of being puppets of some external forces that are trying to topple his democratically elected government! His loudest partner in attacking the opposition is the repulsive, allegedly perpetually corrupt Branko Bacic, former communist operative, current President of HDZ Party parliamentary club whose time in government and parliament would have ceased a long time ago were it not for corrupt elections and corrupt-like pressures that had surely swayed many voters in his electorate to vote for him. Both Plenkovic and Bacic in their public outbursts fail to appreciate, most likely purposefully, that toppling an inefficient or allegedly inefficient government, particularly the one whose ministers have been brought down from their position due to corruption or associations with it, is the most holy duty a democracy has!

It is certainly deeply vexing that a government would invest so much energy in attacking members of its parliamentary Anti-corruption Council and those invited to give testimony etc. Andrej Plenkovic’s government has been doing just that and one must ask why.

The right thing to do in anyone’s books, except in those of the corrupt, is that matters of corruption should be freely examined by anyone who wishes to do so without fear of insults or reprisals. Evidently, not in Croatia!

The Parliamentary Anti-Corruption Council is convening a new round of public hearings “in order to shed light on the management issues of the trading company INA”. Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, former Economy Minister Tomislav Coric, recently dismissed Croatian members of the INA board Niko Dalic, Barbara Doric and Darko Markotic, and their predecessors Ivan Kresic and Davor Mayer have been invited to give evidence at the hearings. The goal of the new round of hearings is to “improve management and prevent corruption in companies and legal entities owned by the Republic of Croatia, especially those that are of special importance to the Republic of Croatia.”

It will be interesting to see if any of these invitees appear at the hearings. It would seem that governing HDZ party’s labelling the Council via Branko Bacic illegal may be another way of making the fight against corruption even more difficult or simply a symptom of underlying fear of the truth?

The Anti-corruption Council is the only working body of the Croatian Parliament in which the majority members are from the opposition, and it is indicative of deep corruption and/or dishonesty that attempts are made to ban public hearings only when Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic is called to answer before parliament about one of the biggest corruption scandals in the country’s history (INA affair). Referring to illegality of the Council is wrong, and Branko Bacic is acting abominably and deceitfully if for nothing else then because the Rules of Parliamentary Procedure are not a law of the country, but a parliament by-law, and therefore, there should be no question of the illegality of the work of that working body by anyone.

In a country riddled with corruption, such as Croatia, the obstruction of the work of the Anti-corruption Council is a horrific blow to democracy and it shows well that the Government’s fight against corruption is more about stopping the full truth and the processing of such crimes than about healing Croatia from that crippling disease Croatia was infected with during its life within communist Yugoslavia. Obstruction and cover-up of the Government’s and HDZ’s responsibility in the INA affair has, in effect, been the current and past anti-corruption strategy of all ruling political parties since year 2000 – and that in essence is communism as Croatia knew it under the totalitarian regime of Yugoslavia.

Lo and behold, on 13 October Plenkovic said he would not attend the Anti-corruption Council’s hearings as invited. Journalists asked him why he would not respond to the Anti-Corruption Council received the following reply from him: “To whom? Who should I respond. You have a team there that is inviting a guy who is accused of mega-scale corruption. What are we going to learn about his skills there, how to throw a cell phone in a river, carry huge sums of money in bags? What are we talking about? You also must look at it realistically what is the credibility of these people. On the other hand, you have MOST (Coalition of Independent Parties), who, since I kicked them out of the government, have a fixed idea of overthrowing the government, that is their main sport. I don’t care who they will call and who will respond to them. I will not respond.”

My question to the Prime Minister of Croatia would be: What kind of a person, what kind of a Prime Minister characterises a citizen accused of a crime as a criminal before that citizen is found guilty by the courts!? In a true democracy the answer is clear!

Independent Member of Croatian Parliament Karolina Vidovic Kristo has October 13, 2022, emphasised the following in her speech in parliament: “Plenkovic and leading politicians in Croatia, starting with self-proclaimed analysts, insult anyone who asks for informed and evidence-based explanations or presents facts… Public opinion agencies have found that about 70% of citizens believe that Croatia is going in the wrong direction… Examples are the case of INA in which the facts are indisputable because Andrej Plenkovic’s and his government’s corruption in the case of the Sisak refinery has been proven, and treason has also been proven…Croatian citizens feel the dysfunctionality of all important state segments…In 2022 the current German Chancellor Olaf Scholz properly responds to the invitation of the investigative committee of the Hamburg city senate, the federal level outside his formal responsibility, regarding the so-called CumEx affair. This is exactly an example of a functional rule of law and European values. Croatian Prime Minister Plenkovic does not come to the Croatian Parliament to answer for his actions, he does not respect the laws, he does not respect Croatian citizens, he does not respect the Croatian state. He keeps Croatia in lawlessness and the Balkan mire. But know, you arrogant powerful people, the time of reckoning is coming very soon, and we will organise Croatia as a fair and just country.”

I have written several articles in the past several years on the issue of lack of government will and skill to rid Croatia of corruption and nepotism even though a few high-level personalities have been found guilty of corruption while others remain in courts after more than a decade of indictments being served upon them. Even in these cases one has always been left cheated, as if something was missing, someone being protected. Justice has certainly not been seen as having been done and for justice to be seen to have been done is a very important ingredient of true democracy and well-functioning state. Whatever the government’s reasons to trash the Anti-corruption Council composition and its work at this time when INA grand theft of public money affair weighs heavily upon the Croatian people and their future no reasonable person could agree with such government behaviour. One would think that the government that boasts of its efforts to fight corruption would never try and stop or stifle anyone trying to do the same! After all, the more people included or involved, the better the chance of capturing most corrupt activities!

To transition fully from communist Yugoslavia and its legacy of corruption, to cleanse a country of communism after five decades of communist totalitarian rule is only achievable with a strong, dedicated, unwavering national strategic plan, which no government in Croatia in past three decades, SDP/Social Democratic Party or HDZ/Croatian Democratic Union, has maintained or fully enforced. That was the first task of the democratic government after the Homeland War had ended and all Croatia’s territory returned to it from Serb occupation. No doubt, too many “skeletons” in the cupboard.

I guess Croatia is just one country in the modern world purporting to nurture pure democracy but if one digs under the surface, voila – pure communism wrapped up in liberalism or conservatism, depending on which political party holds the government. The biggest lie in modern politics is that there is a genuine spectrum of political thought tolerated under a liberal democracy including its conservative variant.

While Croatian government and even leading opposition political parties such as SDP may portray themselves as subscribing to liberalism and the so-called progressive lot, and HDZ may often see itself wrapped up in liberalised conservatism, the reality is that in Croatia all these political ideologies and platforms are a pure camouflage for communism and its heritage. All governments in Croatia since year 2000 have been inflexible, oppressive, repressive in that they belittle and insult all views and opinions and efforts that are attempted in the name of democracy and against those in authority and power. There is, thanks be to the Lord, much opposition to this political charade that is impoverishing people’s lives and pushing multitudes to leave Croatia and seek a decent livelihood elsewhere.

The reality in Croatia is that every political idea that is presented to the public must not in any way criticise the government or suggest that it is not doing a good job, or it will be smothered and stifled and insulted by those in government authorities. It will be lost and pushed behind the life scenes to be forgotten.

It is through a kind of political kabuki theatre that the tropes are perpetuated for three decades now in Croatia, thus keeping the totalitarian communist Yugoslavia regime on life-supports!

The camouflaged communism in Croatia is seeing the increasing intrusion of authoritarian powers in democratic public discourse and one must pray it will crumble from within if not from external forces in Croatia. Not only does the Croatian Prime Minister and his government use authoritarian powers to pursue the government’s agenda, but they insist conceitedly he and his political partners are superior human beings who know best.

This translates into the frame of a democracy within which HDZ considers itself supreme, better, and more skilful at leading the country than any other political party or movement. With the control of mainstream media this is easy to install into the society but then again it is easy to see that such pursuits are far removed from democracy. In reality, they are, communism camouflaged as liberalism and/or conservatism.

When it comes to futile struggles in Croatia for the weaving into its Constitution, laws, and life the values of the 1990’s Homeland War, one cannot but confirm the correctness of widespread perceptions that Croatia is ruled by the former communist Yugoslavia mindset and immediate families of its operatives. The well-known slogan ‘Dare to fight, dare to win’ that originated from communist Mao Tse Tung seems to be and to have been the unspoken slogan adhered to by Croatia’s former communist operatives or their children or grandchildren holding any position of power or authority. It is because of this that Croats have come to know that victory against Serb and Yugoslav aggression in the 1990’s war of independence from communist Yugoslavia only prepared for repetition of what was hateful to the people, restoration of communist Yugoslavia values. But hopefully all that will change through general elections in the near future as the multitudes who have stayed away from casting their votes because of disappointment in politicians head to the polls. Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Andrej PLenkovic, Anti-corruption Council, Branko Bacic, Communism camouflaged as liberalism or conservatism. corruption scadals in Croatia, Communist Yugoslavia, Croatia, Croatian Democratic Union, fighting corruption, HDZ, INA scandal, Karolina Vidovic-Kristo, SDP, Social Democraic Party, theft of public funds, transitioning from communism

Croatia: No Time For Passive Patriotism

September 16, 2022 by inavukic 19 Comments

“We are fed up with affairs of theft and corruption, we are fed up with the communist government, we are fed up with networked cells and everything. Everyone!” – chanted protesters against the Croatian HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union) government on Saturday 10 September 2022, outside the Party headquarters in Zagreb.

The grand theft of about US$107 million from the country’s major oil and gas company “INA” recently uncovered, and dubbed the heist of the century, was without a doubt the trigger for this protest that openly flagged its intention to sack the government. On a visibly large scale in Croatia (as well as in its diaspora, which is economically very important to Croatia) people are sick and tired of the corruption and scandals occurring in the country against which the governments since 2000 have not in earnest waged any real attack – particularly at the grassroots where it counts the most and where real changes to the culture of corruption commence and solidify for the whole nation. This latest eruption of scandalous theft seemed the last straw of tolerance towards the government to quite a few people even if the Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic had swiftly and ceremoniously, a couple of days before the protest, announced that the funds stolen from INA had been found and secured and that “the money will not be running away anywhere”. But still, a significant proportion of the Croatian population does not trust Plenkovic or his political party nor do they trust SDP (Socialist Democratic Party) that was also in government from time to time since year 2000.

_{Zagreb, September 10, 2022, anti-government protest outside the HDZ ruling party headquarters/ Photo: Pixsell/Matija Habljak}

What is more alarming in Prime Minister Plenkovic’s reaction to Saturday’s protest, after a 17-year old lad had been arrested for possession of two Molotov Cocktails and an improvised knife, is that he said that in Croatia there are “people who are ready to use force to overthrow the democratically elected government, and that there are people who are organised, arming themselves and trying to change the government by force.” He and his political party have stood behind this blatant threat to freedom of expression and democracy, dressed up as some deserving comment for the good of all. How would the public know that the 17-year-old Molotov-Cocktail-carrying youth was not planted there by the government!? It’s not as if the public can trust the rotten and corrupt police services (led by former communist operatives) to get to the truth of it, especially if that truth points to the government or its associates. But, if it was true that extremist, violent groups exist in Croatia and are organised with intent of toppling the government, even by force, why has there been no such item of the nation’s security program, said members of the parliamentary opposition a few days after the protest!?

Well, of course there are people everywhere expressing publicly their dissatisfaction with their government, their democracy, and tax-paying, guarantees them that right and obligation. Just look at the human history of mass anti-government protests. One does not try to intimidate all protesters just because one or two are found to have had “weapons”, which could have been planted there for political gain or intimidate the public against future protests of the same goal. One does not cast aspersions of violence or violent intents against a group of concerned citizens demonstrators just because one or two acted badly, independently. But to HDZ it seems that “the son is responsible for the sins of the father”. How tragic for a democracy.

Many, including myself, wish that there were more people that joined the peaceful protest on 10 September, all of them surely have no objection to police dealing with individuals who bring along weapons that could injure or kill people.

The painful truth that must be eradicated in Croatia is that the fight against corruption has been a lot like a cosmetic job whereby only a handful of large lumps of sums stolen from public coffers into private ones of politicians and highly positioned directors of public companies had been pursued for correction and convictions. Overall, court cases for this corruption and theft tend to drag on for a decade or more and somehow most of the money stolen remains mysteriously unaccounted for to the public. Plenkovic as Prime Minister has done absolutely nothing to change this media spinning profile of “corruption fighting” to include fighting corruption at all levels of public administration and services, from the lowest to the highest.

From living as part of communist Yugoslavia for half a century Croatia inherited a profoundly infectious and destructive disease known as corruption that is heavily laden with nepotism, embezzlement, and theft. Abominably, odious corrupt habits for personal gain at every level of public administration have defined Croatia as a “economic basket case”, heavily reliant on EU handouts for survival. Corruption and nepotism are the number one problem and yet independent audits, and financial controls are largely missing or scandalously ineffective and national standards of service delivery under any legislation are inexistent and certainly not in circulation for purposes of rule of law, checks and balances. The life of ordinary people plunging into increasing poverty as the country’s economy plummets into an abyss of failed companies, thieved companies, failed farmers and fisheries particularly due to EU imposed quotas… the definite feel one gets from it all is that bribes are rampant at every public service counter, at every public service job opening at every appointment with a medical specialist in public health, at every enrolment in public schools of praiseworthy repute…

10.09.2022., Zagreb, Croatia – anti-government protest “We dismiss you” / Photo: Matija Habljak/PIXSELL

While there are quite a few people who believe that nothing can be done to rid Croatia of corruption, that it is too deeply rooted into the public administration machinery and culture. Many people who have grown accustomed to perks from a corrupt government that dishes out rewards to those who don’t stir the pot, as it were, tolerate corruption just as many did during the era of communist Yugoslavia. Thankfully, there are also many who feel a strong sense of fidelity to Croatia’s democracy as intended by the War of Independence or Homeland War of the 1990’s. It is to the latter that this predicament of widespread corruption presents greater challenges with intent to eradicate corruption than what it does for those who are willing to abandon or be complacent towards meaningful fight against corruption and are supporting (or tolerating) the governments whose main impetus since 2000 has been to act in concert with the Serb aggressor and its cells in Croatia with view to equate the victim with the aggressor.

Modern Croatia’s founding values are without a doubt those that were set in motion with the overwhelming national determination to secede from communist Yugoslavia and it is almost past the time of reckoning with the extent of damage perpetrated against the Croatian national story by any political party or government since year 2000, strongly laced with communist roots and operations from former Yugoslavia. Hence, protests such as the one that occurred in Zagreb on Saturday 10 September may indeed be a sign of strength in the people rather than a whim of few individuals, would be leaders or politicians. The disabling factor, though, is that there are too many individuals in Croatia who tend to their own handful of followers, form a political party or movement, and claim they, and only they, can “change the world”. A leader must be identified and supported for any joint political force in Croatia that would indeed be successful in “sacking” or dismissing any government that harbours communist Yugoslavia values and morals, that places the aggressor above those who defended the country from that aggressor.

It is a fact that every nation is a unique story upon which its survival depends.

That fact remains regardless of the globalist and leftist push to muddy those individual national stories and blend all into an amorphous mass of subservient people across the globe to a powerful few.

A national story is almost never a simple one. National identity itself, and therefore – prosperity, invariably depend upon how we tell the story of our nation – about our past, our present moment, and our future. Croatian story in essence is the one that tells us that Croatia started as rightful Kingdom of its own in early 10^th century, continued independent until 1102 AD to be forced into becoming a subservient nation to various occupying and imperialistic foreign kingdoms, empires, or republics to be finally freed in 1995 because of the victorious Homeland War, defending itself from brutal Serb and Yugoslav forces of aggression. The latter, therefore, is what in its story the Croatian nation must accentuate for the sake of its own survival and prosperity, regardless of the fact it is now an EU member state. Neither the HDZ nor the SDP have shown the capacity to tell the story of the Croatian nation. They both missed or downplayed intentionally the crucial significance of the 1990’s Homeland War for the nation’s story. They insisted and still insist on inflicting pain upon the Croatian nation by collaborating in government not with the Serb minority that fought in the war to defend Croatia from Serb aggression but with the Serb minority directly associated with the anti-Croatia aggression, murders, destruction!

Many national stories are rooted in a particular ethnicity or religion that forms the core of that national identity. In Croatia, as in some other countries around the world, things are more complicated. Since the founding of modern and independent Croatia that sought secession from communist Yugoslavia, Croatia’s national identity has been the story that is constantly poisoned by former communists and their descendants. Be that from the writing of Croatia’s Constitution by former communist operatives just before the Serb and Yugoslav aggression started, to the failure in changing promptly that Constitution once the victory over the aggressor was achieved. At that point in time all references to any communist Yugoslavia “achievements” for independence of Croatia should have been removed from the constitution because communists/partisans in World War Two fought to keep Croatia within Yugoslavia, not to free it from it. But such changes to the Constitution were not made!

There lies the greatest culprit for the boldness of former communists and their descendants for the licence they have written for themselves to underplay the victory in the War of Independence or Homeland War as the centre of the Croatian national story.

The door opened to democracy in Croatia by the Homeland War victory is worth saving indeed. If not via elections (which are reputed to be corrupt) then on the streets with more and more peaceful protests. No government had ever welcomed a protest against it, and it rings so true that if a government told and lived their nation’s story then there would be no protests against it in the sense of bringing it down completely.

Croatian people need to save the soul of Croatia. The soul that achieved its independence in the 1990’s. That was the last time Croatia had a real sense of purpose and that sense was felt nationwide.

To achieve such a national sense of purpose the success will require political leadership and the mobilisation of citizens and various sectors of Croatian society—including cultural, media, and business institutions that have often been reticent to engage in debates that drift in the direction of politics. The wielding of political leadership and power achieved via dismal voter turnouts is no real national leadership.

_{10/09/2022 Zagreb Croatia – Anti Government protest (You have stolen our future, we dismiss you)/ Photo: Cropix/ Dragan Matic}

This is no time for passive patriotism!

Croatian democracy will not survive if Croatians lazily assume that enough people will just come to their senses and recognise that it must be saved—that there is something fixed in the national character that ensures people will live decently and have all opportunities for advancement a democracy offers. There’s nothing inevitable at all about the verdict of history because the history depends on the people creating it. The reliance upon government coffers and corrupt practices has given many families in former Yugoslavia an acceptable standard of living – that was simply the political way communism sought to survive; this though cannot last but Croatia is significantly impoverished through corruption and poverty is on the increase. Croatians must fight for their national story to be weaved into their legislation, into their everyday lives and it is becoming very clear that organised massive and peaceful protests in the streets are becoming the only tool available to the promise of success in living the national story for which rivers of Croatian blood were spilled in the 1990’s. The transition from communism to democracy demands people power. It is everyone’s responsibility and duty to ensure Croatia becomes free of communist Yugoslavia completely. Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Andrej PLenkovic, Anti-Government protest, Communist Yugoslavia, corruption in Croatia, Croatia, Croatian Democratic Union, Croatian Homeland War, Croatian war of independence, HDZ, National Story, Passive Patriotism, SDP, Social Democratic Party, transitioning from communism

Fragmented Body Politic – Symptom Of Lost Control Over Croatia’s Socio-Political Destiny

March 13, 2020 by inavukic 15 Comments

Photo: Alamy.com/ licensed/copyright (c)

Fragmentation of the so-called patriotic (domoljubne), usually dubbed as right-wing, body politic in Croatia has never been more vigorous than at the present time. All parties and political movements (and there are many) involved proclaim either in words or implications a vigorous critical loyalty to Croatia and, ultimately, to the values of the 1990’s Homeland War. However, regretfully, although all proclaim same or very similar political-social goals, burrows that separate them from each other appear insurmountable.

Fragmented body, say many an academics in the world, symbolises castration anxiety as well as loss of control; in this case over national direction. The emergence and seemingly flourishing on life-support from sections of the electorate of more than 150 political parties in Croatia vying for power, espousing a desperate need for change, may be construed as evidence that control has actually been lost in Croatia especially over the process of full democratisation as espoused in the values of the Homeland War.

In recent years, it has become obvious to all but the willfully blind that much is not well with the Croatian self-determination and ordered liberty to be had in a functional democracy where red tape and corruption are minimised (where detrimental practices inherited from the communist Yugoslavia era are thoroughly weeded out from society and public administration).

The signs that something is seriously wrong are myriad:

a degree of political polarisation unprecedented since the era when Croats won the bloody war of Serb aggression in 1990’s through which independence was won – through which Croatia seceded from communist Yugoslavia
a bitter and debilitating culture war between and within both the left-winged (mainly former communists) and right-winged (who pursue decommunisation and Croatian national identity in accordance with Homeland War values) political spectrum that appears to define and/or steer everyday life of even ordinary people;
the erosion of the bonds of civic amity and emergence of a civic culture animated by mutual hatred and contempt based on political ideology and directions in which Croatia should develop and assert its place in the democratic world;
a pervasive cynicism and a growing crisis of legitimacy of all or any party or movement body politic;
the seeming loss of any notion of an overarching common good to which private interests must be subordinated and resultant understanding of politics as a zero-sum game;
and what might be called “gridlock” wherein the fragmentation of the national body politic into a plethora of competing interests (more often personal than not) whose conflicting and ever-escalating demands induce something akin to political paralysis. (Most Croatians are acutely and keenly aware that the system is broken, that public institutions are not functioning the way they should in a democracy but seem unsure as to how to fix this.)

Indeed, Croatia (as do some Western countries) seems to be witnessing the rise of what several political scientists call “anomic democracy” in which democratic politics becomes more an arena for the assertion of conflicting interests than the building of common purposes. A common purpose for Croatia, as the values asserted via the 1990’s Homeland War tell us, is that of democratisation and decommunisation. The latter encapsulates the absolute need to rid the country of the totalitarian-like control in all aspects of state authority and expression whether it be in user-friendly legislation that promotes economic growth, an independent judiciary or balanced mainstream media etc.

In fact, so divided does Croatia appear and so dysfunctional has its politics become that it feels like being in the midst a “cold civil war”. The vitriol that gushes out between people of differing political allegiances is often suffocating. Perhaps herein lies the reason why true national leaders, whom a significant portion of people trust, are practically non-existent or, at least, invisible, or not afforded a chance to shine in the environment of many egocentric or “I know best” players.

Croatia’s critical public consensus regarding secession from communist Yugoslavia was at its peak during 1990’s and the Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ led this field of goal-focused national harmony. Then came year 2000 and increased subversive political activities from former communists which resurrected Pro-communist Yugoslavia nostalgia in at least 30% of the Croatian national body politic. This, undoubtedly, led to the collapse of the overwhelmingly widespread consensus as to how Croatia should develop and a disastrous and shameful treatment of war veterans from the Homeland War. The results of such a collapse in consensus is a society that begins to disintegrate into collection of warring tribes. The most striking example of this occurs when a society explodes into bitterly opposed camps that, disagreeing fundamentally on the moral and political principles that should govern public life, are ultimately unable to coexist in peace. It is not rare to come across people in Croatia who believe that nothing bar “gunpowder” will save Croatia, i.e. bring it back to the point of “Croatia above all else” that was in the 1990’s! On a lighter or less dramatic note, as the public philosophy that united Croatian people in the 1990’s gradually disappears, the society splinters into a multitude of hostile groups – a multitude of political tribes, as it were, which far from viewing each other as partners in a common enterprise and exhibiting an attitude of trust or civility toward one another, will instead view each other with hostility, fear and resentment.

At the same time, insofar as decisions on public policy involve the use of means to achieve social goals, the loss of shared purposes make decision-making increasingly difficult, if not impossible. If we can’t agree about where we are trying to go, how are we ever going to agree about – or even rationally discuss – the best means to get there? In short, the groups into which the polity has fragmented will be increasingly unable to reach agreement about public policies, increasingly reluctant to make compromises, and increasingly unwilling to sacrifice their own interests for the good of the community as a whole. Thus, unified action on the part of the community will become increasingly difficult if not impossible and political paralysis increasingly possible. The machinery of democracy continues to operate, but effective governance becomes impossible. The end result is the loss by the state of its legitimacy, its moral authority.

Today in this year of General Elections due around September election platforms are already being formulated and it is not unusual to come across the slogan or rhetoric that goes something like this: ”We will return Croatia to the Croatian People”, “We will return the government to the people”, etc. These emerge from a number of political parties or movements, particularly those who have positioned themselves on the right-wing or conservative side of the political spectrum.

But, how can you have “government by the people,” without having a people?

Surely, the multitudes of political parties and movements – the many personalities vying for the top, result in the scattering of votes (people) that would form that critically needed consensus for the country. Today in Croatia, pluralism has grown to the point where, we’ve reached the stage where we are ceasing to agree even in basic respects on what man is and how he should live, where morally and intellectually we can scarcely be considered one people. This is particularly visible in the shambles and political trade-offs regarding the importance for Croatia’s sovereignty of the Homeland War. The ever-growing loudness of pro-former-communist regime via left-wing parties and political movements, aggravates the critical consensus for national direction to a painful level. Hence, the common body of cultural capital on which Croatia has historically traded is disappearing noticeably, and its political institutions have become increasingly dysfunctional in that they fail to adhere to common good and insert into the “national” the “personal” interests. As for what the future holds, insofar as the prospects for re-establishing some type of substantive consensus any time in the foreseeable future seem slim, it seems likely we’re looking at dysfunction as far as the eye can see. And, that is not, to put it gently, a happy prospect.

Our politically fragmented country, as reflected in the current heated political factions, created an embankment foreclosing the opportunity for the creation of real discourse. The impetus is on us, the citizen, to act as catapults and destroy that wall, and partake in holistic discourse with one another, to push for and stand behind a leader who has not lost sight of why Croatia fought for independence and has the skill and supporting “machinery” to avert the possible disaster of the loss of Croatian identity and will. This thought, or rather wish, leads me to the beginning of this article regarding the fragmentation of the patriotic body politic.

On Sunday March 15^th the Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ (current major political party holding a coalition government) is holding Party elections, characterised by the split of the party into two evidently viciously warring camps. Current President Andre Plenkovic and his team on one side and Miro Kovac and his team on the other – each asserting that they are the right people to reinvigorate this fragmented party into what it once was – a party to be looked up to by a large proportion of the nation’s population. The implications of this rest on the realisation that even the Croatia’s major political party, that ushered in Croatian independence and secession from communism, has lost the critical consensus regarding where Croatia should go or should be; one faction claiming to be “more Croatian” than the other. Furthermore, also on the right-wing of politics, there are a number of political parties and movements and independent politicians vying for a similar outcome if elected into government at this year’s General Elections. The leading groups opposing HDZ’s control of the right-winged or patriotic electorate are the Croatian Sovereignists (led by Hrvoje Zekanovic and made up of a number of smaller political parties and individual activists) and their current coalition partners in the Parliamet (Block for Croatia/Zlatko Hasanbegovic and independent MP Zeljko Glasnovic) as well as the newly founded Domoljubni Pokret (Patriotic Movement) headed by Mirislav Skoro.

There does not seem to be much movement on either the left or the right side of the political spectrum to reel into their fold voters from the opposing ideological camps. This of course suggests that nationally, ideological divisions still prevail and, hence, attachments to individual politicians rather than party programs (for all the people regardless of their political ideology). Political ideology defined life during the communist Yugoslavia era and it seems it will take some serious work in order to free the people of this burden, and encourage them to look beyond political personalities when voting. Otherwise, fragmentation of body politic will continue to flourish even though the race to secure a cushy position for the individual politician and not for true representation of voter or constituency needs is obvious, and in essence disliked by the very constituency.

As socio-political actors, it is time when people and politicians need to realise that they are not on a crusade when it comes to Croatia as a legitimate State; rather, that they are, at this time of severe fragmentation of body politic, on an exploratory expedition to bring Croatia to how it was imagined and fought for during the Homeland War. Croatia is independent, sovereign and as such has the capacity and validity to make its own decisions for national welfare.

While the end-goal of electoral politics is winning, it should also be more about the advancement of certain programmes and policies. In a democracy it is the latter that brings in votes. And when faced with the reality of electoral or body politic fragmentation arrived at through personal ambitions of individual politicians, unless critical consensus is reached between them, leading to programme-framed and managed coalition – victory is poor, if at all existent. An interesting six-month period for Croatia and its progress into full democratisation and national identity – coming to your door! Play your part for Croatia! Ina Vukic