Ivan Vilibor Sincic – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Croatia: Minority Government, More Of The Same (?)

September 14, 2016 by inavukic 20 Comments

Map of Croatia
With Election 2016 Results
by majority seats per electorate
Photo: Screenshot HRT news 12.09.2016

The conservative Croatian Democratic Union, or HDZ, scored a relative victory in the early parliamentary vote on Sunday 11 September and now faces the task of forming a coalition government after voters again failed to produce a clear majority winner. Complete results reported Monday by Croatia’s state electoral commission showed that Andrej Plenkovic’s HDZ won 61 seats in the 151-member parliament, while Zoran Milanovic’s left-leaning Peoples’ Coalition won 54. Bozo Petrov’s Most party, or Bridge of Independent lists won 13 seats and it appears Most will again be a kingmaker as was the case in the last government. Zivi Zid, or Human Shield/Live Wall, a populist left alliance led by Ivan Vilibor Sincic, presented as the biggest surprise of these elections as it surged from 1 seat in last elections to 8 in these ones as it promised to be tough on banks and on the demand to seek prosecution of unnamed corrupt officials. General Zeljko Glasnovic, an independent who left HDZ just prior to elections, won a seat representing the diaspora and his strong card is that of lustration (getting rid of former communists in high positions in Yugoslavia from high position in democratic Croatia). Istrian Democratic Party and partners won 3 seats, Milan Bandic’s (current Mayor of Zagreb) Premier party won 2 seats and HDSSB (Croatian Democratic Alliance of Slavonia and Baranja) andHKS (Croatian Conservative Party) 1 seat.

Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ
Headquarters on election night
11 September 2016 with president
Andrej Plenkovic in centre
Photo: Connor Vlakancic

Various types of mainly lingering communist ethos in Croatia have rushed to form an orchestra chanting that the new, like the last government, will not last long; that the voters are disappointed and disenchanted. One assumes they could say no different given that their like-minded exit polls agencies had failed miserably when they predicted the centre-left headed by Zoran Milanovic would win an easy victory over the centre-right HDZ. One assumes the Social Democrat led opposition will not cease creating scandals in order to destabilise the new government.

Wrong exit polls, dashed the hopes of many who were “certain” the “Reds” will win a comfortable victory over the conservative lot all contributed to Zoran Milanovic’s announcement he will retire from leader of Social Democrats position after such bad election results for the party. Yes, Zoran Milanovic was quite involved and loud in toppling the previous HDZ leader Tomislav Karamarko and consequently the government in June of this year. Zoran Milanovic’s SDP loss at the snap elections last Sunday could well be karma at play for his leadership was instrumental and loud in framing Karamarko to a corner where there was no alternative but to resign to save HDZ from ongoing scandals, that were often unfounded and concocted. Although Milanovic managed to get elected into the parliament this time on basis of preferences his clout is bound to be weaker although his stubborn and often stupid communist rhetoric may persist. At least he won’t be joined in parliament by the former president of Croatia, Stjepan Mesic, whom SDP resurrected from retirement and placed on its electoral list of candidates. Not even preferential votes managed to get Mesic across the parliament’s threshold. All Mesic got was some miserable 5,000 votes. This though may not deter Mesic from playing a role in helping SDP maintain political divisiveness in Croatia, which surely seems as main culprit for the election results environment still deadlocked between two large parties without producing a clear preference or majority.

The turnout at elections on Sunday was 52.6% some 8% lower than in November 2015 although in the countries abroad, in the diaspora, the turnout was significantly higher in many polling stations, suggesting the diaspora is gradually becoming more alert in making sure people register to vote as required in advance. The lower voter turnout and the relatively high number of votes cast for relatively newly-established minor parties/or coalitions has been a recurring phenomenon in recent years and these elections provided no exception. This would suggest that either many Croatian voters are looking for an alternative to the two-party option or HDZ and SDP have both failed miserably at convincing a majority to vote for them. Whatever the reason for the rather thin spread of votes across parties that precludes a majority win, the outcome does present major challenges for the formation of a homogeneous government. Forming a government in this mix of electoral wins would suggest deals and compromises will need to be made and this, in turn, may mean a weakened capacity of government to deliver on needed reforms.

SDP president Zoran Milanovic
announces resignation from leader of opposition
Photo: Nova TV news 11.09.2016/Connor Vlakancic

So, many types will say that the reality is that even though HDZ got 2 more seats than last November and SDP got 2 less, this won’t make much difference. Croatia is still going to get pretty much more of the same; the same bickering that led to the previous government’s downfall (?).

However, more of the same in Croatia’s circumstances may mean the economy has started moving and it will keep growing slightly but without a clear, confident and competent course for enhancing and securing that growth or meaningfully pegging back the budget deficit, foreign debts, unemployment… Perhaps I will be proven wrong and I hope I am – but it does take exceptional strength to hold the rudder straight and firm amidst such a intricate variety of political egos and gaggle of groups HDZ will need to work with in its new government.

But perhaps the new government will prove both the skeptics and its would-be gravediggers wrong! If firmness or resolve to lead is anything to go by then HDZ’s Andrej Plenkovic’s determination to be Croatia’s Prime Minister, as his party was the relative winner, may hold the key for a stable government in spite of its diverse make-up. This was something that formerly Tomislav Karamarko did not pursue as firmly as Plenkovic is doiung right from the start; before the government is formed. Plenkovic is already setting the tone of a new government that will have a clear leadership and that is positive. It could well be that appointing a technocratic Prime Minister (Tihomir Oreskovic) who was not an elected party’s member was the element that rocked the previous government the most and contributed to its gradual instability.

Andrej Plenkovic
President HDZ/Croatian Democratic Union
grateful for election victory 11.09.2016
Photo: Connor Vlakancic

Having said that Plenkovic’s strength could well prove to be an asset for HDZ’s stabilising influence upon the new government, without a doubt, forming the new government will prove tricky and difficult for Andrej Plenkovic/HDZ. A prime minister needs a majority of like-minded members (at least on issues tabled for voting within the parliament) to govern. In the house of representatives almost 25% (or more if we count smaller parties such as HNS/Croatian Peoples’ Party who were in coalition with SDP, won some seats, etc., and may entertain the notion of entering into government with HDZ – God forbid) filled with smaller parties and single-seat independent, this is hard to do. Forming a government, and then keeping it together, depends on the co-operation of a flock of groups, often with diverging interests as well as reluctant collaborators. If a small party falls out with its coalition partners, it can bring down the government – similar was the case last time.

A political “risk” factor needs to be added to these structures of a minority government with HDZ as relative majority: Croatia continues to be a divided country. Zoran Milanovic’s SDP and coalition partners have been very active in labeling HDZ as a criminally corrupt party that’s sinking into extreme nationalism, neo-fascism and reviving the WWII Ustashe regime while HDZ supporters have denounced Zoran Milanovic and his SDP as Communists bent on seizing power through resisting prosecution of and reckoning with communist crimes committed during former Yugoslavia as well as through incompetence to govern and uplift the country’s desperate state of the economy and slow-down the brain-drain with droves of young talented people leaving the country in search of jobs abroad. On the sidelines stand Most/Bridge of Independent lists and Live Wall, each reluctant to go into coalition with anyone but each lampooning on how their political agenda will save Croatia and nothing else, as well as the several ethnic minority seats that tend to serve cackling political cocktails and rub wrongly against the perceived Croatian national interests among the general population. The coming weeks will certainly prove challenging for Plenkovic and HDZ as they go about the business of forming a new government and I, for one, do not tend to judge that future government on the performance of the last one, particularly so because there will be a mix of personalities and skills in the new one that were not a contributing factor in the last one. So: good luck HDZ! Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Andrej Plenković, Bozo Petrov, Croatia, Croatian Democratic Union, Croatian elections 2016, HDZ, Ivan Vilibor Sincic, Milan Bandic, SDP, Social Democratic Party, Stjepan Mesic, Zeljko Glasnovic, Zoran Milanovic

Croatia: Snappish Coalitions For Snap Elections

September 4, 2016 by inavukic 21 Comments

Early general elections in Croatia coming up second weekend of September 2016 have not only got behind them the brutally rushed toppling of a short-lived minority HDZ/Croatian Democratic Union–led government amidst founded and unfounded scandals, but are seeing the formation of snappish coalitions and an emergence of miniature political parties and individuals with irritating and irritable chips on their shoulders. All this spells out a possibility that the election results could well come back and bite the Croatian citizens in the back. With some unnatural coalitions between political parties that primarily point to individual candidate desperation to win seats at all costs and the stepping up the rhetoric on the stale dog’s breakfast of a guaranteed fantastic and prosperous future where there’ll be jobs for all, no thieves or corrupt in the public administration and public companies, debilitating foreign debt beat to a pulp and such, one really has difficulties is seeing much change on the political leadership scene from the previous elections of last decade or so. The only change that perhaps one might see is in seemingly more aggressive competition to secure local votes for individuals or smaller parties acting locally rather than nationally. It appears that most of the political coalitions in the elections race are counting on the draining of individual votes from bigger rival political parties to individual candidates running against those rival parties and who perhaps have local prestige or respect regardless of the fact they and their programs are hopeless for the nation as a whole. HDZ and its partners continue to emit the most sober campaign in comparison to the other parties.

For the parliament of 151 seats there are, according to the Croatian Electoral Commission) 2, 456 candidates (40% women; age range between 18 and 90 years) registered and are vying for a seat, including 29 candidates for ethnic minorities. 2016 polls will dish out to the voters 20 various coalitions of 60 political parties, 29 political parties going independently, 3 lists of independent candidates and 6 lists of candidates for ethnic minorities. The sheer numbers of candidates is enough to give any person desirous of a stable government and stable political climate a migraine. It’s very clear that these elections are much about securing a seat for an individual candidate and then pinning it to the victory of their coalition’s leading party. Croatia is bound to be the big loser if the coalitions formed to muster up individual local candidate wins into a win of government or significant number of seats actually win government. The disarray will no longer be in the uncompromising differences between political parties’ platforms but within the actual coalition trying to govern the country as if it’s one party.

In this turbulent sea of thousands of candidates and dozens of political parties running for government the Croatian media has so far given the impression that there are, after all, some leading political camps that have good chances of winning either majority or minority government or the chance to contribute to the forming of a future government.

Andrej Plenkovic,
HDZ/Croatian Democratic Union
Photo: Screenshot hrt.hr 3 September 2016

The centre-right party Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, was the relative winner in November 2015 elections when it won 59 seats. With Tihomir Oreskovic as its technocratic Prime Minister HDZ held minority government with Most/Bridge group of independents only to be toppled amidst scandals in June of this year. HDZ was at the helm of Croatia leading it into secession from communist Yugoslavia and holding government between 1990 and 2000, during the war years, as well as between 2003 and 2011. The new HDZ leader Andrej Plenkovic, a experienced diplomat and EU parliamentarian, was elected as party president in July of this year, seemingly turning the party more to the centre. HDZ decided to compete in the elections alone this time, only considering coalition with individual candidates/partners from smaller parties in certain local areas. Its election campaign trail appears to be spotted with significant victory projections across traditionally conservative electorates but not seemingly enough to project at this stage an outright majority government win on September 11. One thing that’s standing out in HDZ election campaign is its rather successful thrust to present Plenkovic to the Croatian public as a desirable leader for the country, however, the campaign appears in my view to lack adequate presentation of the other ingredient usually associated with election victory: presentation of a strong team rather than individual that will lead Croatia into a better future.

Bozo Petrov Most/Bridge of independent parties Photo: Screenshot hrt.hr 3 September 2016

Bozo Petrov
Most/Bridge of independent lists
Photo: Screenshot hrt.hr 3 September 2016

The Most/Bridge of Independent Lists is a relatively new political party functioning as a group of individual politicians, small-town and municipal mayors formed in 2012 in the small town of Metkovic that claimed and claims to be a ‘third way’ party – the solution to get Croatia out of the rut of a two-party system or two big political parties dominating the political scene in Croatia. It secured 19 seats in November 2015 elections and, hence, became the element that shook and rattled Croatia for a few weeks to finally decide to side with HDZ rather than centre-left Social Democrats/SDP in forming Croatia’s short-lived government in January 2016. It’s president Bozo Petrov, a 37-year-old psychiatrist from Metkovic, where he has been mayor since 2013 has lost a number of his coalition members due to disputes but regardless of that Most/Bridge is still expected to come in as a “third force” and perhaps once again be the one to call the shots which of the major parties (HDZ or SDP) will form the future government even if Petrov says that Most will never go into a coalition again.

History repeats itself saying has never to my knowledge come with good or a positive thing.

Zoran Milanovic
SDP/Social Democratic Party
Photo: Screenshot hrt.hr 3 September 2016

In its new coalition the centre-left SDP/Social Democratic Party (the former League of Communists) led by Zoran Milanovic has changed its name from Croatia Grows to the People’s Coalition and added or changed the parties in its coalition to the point that spells out desperation to win even if judging by its performance in the 2011-2015 government – it should be placed on a political scrap heap for quite a number of years. This time around SDP continues to work with the centre-left Croatian People’s Party/HNS and has pulled in new coalition partners in the Croatian Party of Pensioners, HSU, and the centre-right Croatian Peasants’ Party, HSS, which was a part of the HDZ-led Patriotic Coalition last November. It seems that HSS’s leader’s Kreso Beljak’s history of vandalism and theft convictions under the crimes law makes no difference in SDP’s selection of its coalition partner’s. While the notions of rehabilitation and second chances may be an acceptable way to lead life they certainly don’t factor as acceptable for members of a government in my book, especially when there’s much noise about corruption and theft in government bodies. Social Democrats are leading a campaign of dirt slinging against HDZ especially, and yet they themselves seem to have gathered quite a bit of dirt under their wings, showing it off, even, without blinking an eye. Not a good look for a party desirous of winning government but – there it is.

Ivan Lovrinovic (L) and
Ivan Vilibor Sincic (R)
Only Option Coalition
Photo: makarsko-primorje.com

The so-called Only Option Coalition was formed in July and is led by the anti-establishment Living Wall. Living Wall was created in 2011 from a civic movement fighting foreclosures and evictions by occupying buildings and is led by Ivan Vilibor Sincic. Three former Most/Bridge MPs, as well as the Association Franak (an NGO set up to lobby for people with loans in Swiss francs, whose debts rose due to a steep rise in the value of the franc) join living Wall in the coalition. The Only Option Coalition is said to be gaining momentum that may, as far as seats won is concerned, place it on equal footing to the Most/Bridge wins and, therefore, make it an another camp with which a future minority government would negotiate terms to form government especially since Most/Bridge says it will not enter into any coalition with anybody.

Milan Bandic
Coalition for Prime Minister
Photo: hrt.hr

The veteran Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandic and his party Bandic Milan 365 – Party of Labour and Solidarity, leads the current Coalition for Prime Minister. Bandic, an ex-SDP member, has joined forces with two other ex-major party members who are factoring noticeably on the Croatian political scene: Ivo Baldasar from city of Split, an ex-SDP and Radimir Cacic of Reformists, an ex- HNS member. Bandic’s coalition also claims to be Croatia’s answer for a “third way”, however current polls predictions are quite slim for this camp – up to 2 or 3 seats in total.
There are two regional parties that won seats at the November elections and are likely to win some at the upcoming polls: the Istrian Democratic Assembly, IDS, and the Croatian Democratic Alliance of Slavonia and Baranja, HDSSB. While IDS is likely to continue favouring SDP as they themselves are riddled with former communists, HDSSB if it wins seats although ideologically close to the more right than centre-right is likely to keep its final preferences in the pocket to the last minute.

Archbishop Zelimir Puljic

While polls suggest that a week before elections every fifth voter is undecided (HRT news 3 September 2016) and, therefore, surprises are possible including a majority government elected, the fact remains that neither of the two major parties seem to have done much work in wooing new voters into their camps and the election results will demonstrate that a large number of Croatian voters leaning towards the centre-left parties have made little if any progress in leaving the lingering pro-communist Yugoslavia mentality behind. Perhaps that is why the Croatian Bishops have Thursday 25 August sent via Archbishop of Zadar Zelimir Puljic their own message to Croatian voters to “familiarise themselves with candidates’ programs, especially the ones to do with the economy and to focus their attention on how individual political parties intend to continue with the process of education reform and the democratisation of the society as well as the confrontation with the communist past.” Could not have said it better myself. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Andrej Plenković, Bozo Petrov, Bridge, Croatia, Croatian Democratic Union, Croatuian elections 2016, HDZ, Ivan Vilibor Sincic, Live Wall, Milan Bandic, Most, SDP, Social Democratic Party, Zoran Milanovic

Croatian Presidential Elections Set Dead-Heat Conditions For January Run-off

December 29, 2014 by inavukic 64 Comments

Photo: Screenshot from Croatian
Electoral Commission website
accessed 29 Dec 2014

The Social Democrat and left wing coalition backed incumbent, Ivo Josipovic, and the conservative rival backed by the Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ and its coalition, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, are heading for a showdown in a run-off presidential election on January 11 in Croatia. The latest unofficial results published (1.00 a.m. on 29 December Croatia time) by the Croatian Electoral Commission, with 99.89% votes counted, place Ivo Josipovic at 38.48%, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic at 37.18%, Ivan Sincic at 16.43% and Milan Kujundzic at 6.30% of votes counted. With such close results it seems impossible to predict the winner among the top two candidates at the second round elections on January 11, which must be held given that no candidate passed the 50% mark in first round held on 28 December.

The voter turnout at around 47% or 1,786,670 can be considered as large, however notably lower than in elections held during the era of Franjo Tudjman in 1990’s and somewhat lower than in last elections of 2009/10. One polling place was closed due to weather conditions and serious snow-blizzards. Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic led in 13 districts with Croatia and in the diaspora while Ivo Josipovic led in 7 districts and the city of Zagreb. Croatian media reports that the biggest surprise in this first round of elections is the higher than expected voter confidence given to Ivan Sincic, a Eurosceptic, but also, lower than expected given to Milan Kujundzic, right-wing politician.

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic at post-election gathering in Zagreb Photo: www.hdz.hr

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic
at post-election gathering in Zagreb
Photo: http://www.hdz.hr

Grabar-Kitarovic, assistant secretary general for the NATO on leave without pay, and a former foreign minister of Croatia, has throughout her campaign called for closer cooperation with the government on economic issues and often reiterated the role of the President to hold the government to account, the role at which Josipovic has failed miserably during his current mandate as President of Croatia.

Croatian news agency HINA reported that soon after the announcement of the above unofficial results Grabar-Kitarovic congratulated all the candidates, especially Milan Kujundzic and Ivan Sincic and turned to “Josipovic voters” telling them that they too are a part of her program “For a Better Croatia”:
” You and the whole of Croatia deserve a better and a more prosperous Croatia that believes in its own resources and in its own people,” she said and pointed out that the voters who gave their votes to Kujundzic and Sincic have shown that they want a better and a more just Croatia that cares about every single person. She said that there will be no more divisions into “ours and theirs” after 11 January and the togetherness championed by Croatia’s first president Franjo Tudjman in 1990’s will be revived.

Ivo Josipovic at post-election
gathering in Zagreb 28 Dec 2014
Photo: Screenshot 24sata.hr

Soon after the unofficial election results were published Ivo Josipovic also addressed the Croatian citizens saying that he won in the first round and will win in the second.

“…We have won because my program offers a different Croatia to the one we have today, it offers one with more democracy, with more human rights, the one that opens new perspectives and the one that builds the economy which will not have so many unemployed, and the one in which the traditions and the values of Croatian society will be respected,” he said.

He emphasised that the motto of his politics is justice! And yet, he has the gall to brand all members of his opposition as those who have thieved Croatia even though only a handful of individual past HDZ government leaders/government functionaries have been indicted or brought to justice for corruption and – even though a handful of Social Democrat aligned politicians are currently entangled in court proceedings for corruption or investigations for corruption!

The man and the politician – Josipovic – is a joke! He tries to reassure the public of justice and yet in this important case he blatantly practices – none!

He is a lawyer by trade and yet paints everyone in an organisation guilty of acts secretly committed only by one or few!

And one must ask: what in the world has Josipovic been doing the past five years as President if only now he promises justice and greater human rights and more employment…? He did, after all, base his 2010 campaign on the same slogan “Justice for Croatia”!

The coming two weeks are bound to shape the results of showdown run-off second round voting 11 January. The results between the two leading candidates are too close and the scales could tip over either way. Depending on how strong the need for change is etched on voters’ minds and hearts. Josipovic’s 38.48% first round result certainly suggests that the need for change is strong as it is actually this need for change in Croatian leadership that is the first round winner – not Josipovic, as he would like to think. While Stjepan Mesic (ex-president) has said during Josipovic’s post-vote gathering that Sincic “can freely ask his voters to support Josipovic in the second round” one wonders as to how much a single candidate or two (Sincic/Kujundzic) can actually influence the decisive vote on 11 January. By all indications these Croatian voters are voters for change, non-aligned with the two top candidates (Josipovic and Grabar-Kitarovic) in the first round of voting and it will be up to the candidates to convince these “runaway” voters to vote to their advantage. Indeed, a strong impetus must be maintained in order to encourage these voters to vote at all.

When it comes to voters living abroad, the diaspora, there is no doubt that both Stjepan Mesic and Ivo Josipovic have managed to solidify the atrocious situation in which the right to vote has been alarmingly diminished by the reduction of the number of polling places where émigrés can vote. The polling places have been limited to diplomatic-consular missions’ addresses and this has resulted in the sad and enraging effects where diplomatic-consular staff are/were unwilling to ensure fair access to polling places by organising more than one in a country or state (depending on the number of missions). As there is no postal or electronic voting, the majority of those with a right to vote have been kept out of voting – it was only during the times of Franjo Tudjman, 1990’s, that polling places for all elections for Croatia (parliamentary and presidential) were organised in optimally adequate places accessible to a greater majority of voters, e.g. Clubs or other organisations where émigrés largely gravitated to. After that time, the Croatian diplomatic-consular missions across the world had ensured that the number of polling places was reduced to an absolute minimum and thus, not at all reasonably or fairly accessible to most. One of the President’s key roles is associated with decisions regarding the operational matters of diplomatic-consular missions abroad – and here too Josipovic has failed those Croatians citizens abroad! He talks of justice and rights but so easily takes, obstructs or minimises both! What is even worse is that polling places in the diaspora are construed as matters of state authorities rather than a matter of the Electoral Commission, which in legal terms is an independent (of government or presidency) body. Croatian democracy, if it’s to survive and evolve further, is so desperately ready for change in leadership! Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)