Tihomir Oreskovic – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Croatia: Snappy Dissolution Of Parliament To Snap Elections

June 22, 2016 by inavukic 18 Comments

Croatian Parliament

Croatian politicians have Monday 20 June voted to dissolve the parliament, paving the way for snap elections after bringing down the fragile five-month old government last week through vote of no confidence against Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic.
The dissolution of parliament “will become effective on July 15“, speaker Zeljko Reiner said on Monday 20 June. 137 members in the 151-seat assembly backed the dissolution move.
The new election, a snap vote, is likely to happen in early September, as it must be held no earlier than 30 days and no later than 60 days after the date when parliament is dissolved. President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, who will choose the election date, said she would take account of the fact that most parties were in favour of holding the vote after the summer holidays.

At the same time, the majority coalition party in government, HDZ with Tomislav Karamarko at its head, did not succeed in mustering up enough support (76 seats) to restructure a new government. Hence, Tomislav Karamarko has resigned as party leader, leaving the party leadership slate clean for fresh talent with the most chance of beating by a good margin the centre-left Social Democrats at the polls.

Karamarko said his resignation will give his party a better chance in the snap elections “this act creates space for new impulses.”
“I am resigning in the interest of the party, not because of pressure,” Karamarko said. “I had promised my party that I will be able to create a political majority and I failed, so I take responsibility for that.”

Last November’s election produced a fragile, minority government that was catapulted into power through coalition with Most/Bridge independents and appointing a non-elected Prime Minister. Had there been more experience in this kind of government perhaps all would have been well but, regretfully, the government became the focus of staged scandals by the opposition, disputes over sensitive political appointments, public administration reforms that would mean big job cuts, and Karamarko’s conflict of interest case. Had all this not ended the way it did, had Karamarko not resigned there would have surely been new scandals to bring the government down. This government was doomed from the start and, I would say, much of the blame could be directed at the ousted Prime Minister who, it seems, lost his way somewhere along the line and forgot that HDZ had a list of reforms that needed to be implemented and because of which it was elected as a relative majority in parliament.

The prospects of new election results do not point to a much better or different situation. If an elected majority is not a convincing majority, a minority government would again take power joining into a coalition with minor parties or independents and political instability comparable to the one we have just seen in Croatia could well re-emerge. This of course would produce more lasting negative influences on investments upon which reforms and economic recovery depend.

HDZ has a huge job to do in the coming weeks if it wants to win government again and much of this work will be safely in the bag if its new leader is a figure many in and out of current HDZ support can respect. Such a person, in my opinion is Andrej Plenkovic, currently HDZ Member of EU Parliament, who has already declared he’ll put his hand up for candidacy. It needs to be kept in mind that HDZ won a relative majority of seats in parliament with promised reforms that have yet to be tested and implemented and if cards are played right with the people, this, and not the confusion of the political crisis just gone, will be in voters minds when they go to the polls in September.
Voters know that Croatia needs decisive reforms to fix its fragile public finances, reduce public debt, which now stands at 86% of GDP, improve the investment climate and stimulate growth. All of this has now been placed on a backburner as snap elections loom. HDZ would do well to reassure the electorate that the reforms needed, and more, are ready to go despite the unwelcome albeit temporary setback with the political crisis just gone. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Andrej Plenković, Croatia, Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, Tihomir Oreskovic, Tomislav Karamarko, Zeljko Reiner

Croatian Government Falls – No Love In Politics

June 19, 2016 by inavukic 26 Comments

Left: Domagoj Ivan Milosevic, Gen Sec. HDZ
Right: Tomislav Karamarko, President HDZ
Photo: Marko Prpic/Pixsell

What gigantic three days of last week in the political life of Croatia.
In the wake of the Commission for conflicts of interests decision that conflict of interest applied to him in the case of INA/MOL and his wife’s business dealings, the leader of the majority party in government, Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ Tomislav Karamarko on Wednesday 15 June resigned as First Deputy Prime Minister; but not without emphasising that HDZ, as relatively major seat holder in parliament, was not giving up its fight to form a new government within the 30 days defined by law after a fall of government and that new elections were the very last option HDZ would look to. Indeed, HDZ has been giving confident reassurances that it has decided upon its candidate for the new Prime Minister (current finance minister Zdravko Maric) and that it will in the ensuing legally defined period of 30 days from the fall of current government succeed in achieving 76-seat majority in the parliament.

Tihomir Oreskovic,
fallen Prime Minister of Croatia
Photo: Marko Lukunic/Pixsell

The current coalition government fell on Thursday 16 June after only five months in the throne as the Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic lost a confidence vote in the parliament.

Then in a move that evoked sizeable anger and resentment towards her seeming disrespect of rules and bias, president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic wasted no time in hogging the public microphone on Friday 17 June, saying that “nobody I spoke with has (during the consultations she had held with members of parliament since the day before) convinced me they enjoy the needed support of 76 or more representatives to achieve the status of Prime Minister.”

“I can confirm that a majority has expressed the opinion about the need for early elections,” she continued, adding that it was impossible to shorten the period of 30 days guaranteed by the Constitution and appealed to the president of the parliament Zeljko Reiner to bring the matter of dissolution of the parliament to its agenda as soon as possible! Reportedly most representatives she spoke to expressed the opinion that new elections should be held in early September, however, as per previous practice, one would expect that she would hold more than just one consultation within this important realm that gives her the responsibility to ensure Croatia has a government in place.

This is what’s on Croatia’s political plate at this moment:

• parliamentary relative majority party HDZ seeks to utilise its constitutional right of 30 days to form a new coalition government rather than go to snap elections;
• the country’s president appeals for the parliament to table the decision on its own dissolution prior to the expiry of those 30 days in order to make way for snap elections;
• HDZ leader Tomislav Karamarko has announced his appeal against the conflict of interest findings to the Administrative tribunal.

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic
President of Croatia
Photo: Marko Prpic/Pixsell

As one might expect, this president’s move is fanning ongoing speculations and political postulations as to whether and why in fact the parliament should be dissolved on the day when 30 days expire (15 July 2016). The president’s move appears to be feeding a good deal of members of parliament to keep driving loud opinions that HDZ should bow out of its right to 30 days to form a new government and simply join the rest in speeding up the dissolution. This, of course, is causing a good deal of distressing confusion in public as well as to a politically staged diversion from HDZ’s inherent rights to try and quell ruffled-up spirits and save the government without the need for new elections. The political platform is rife with a push for snap elections, which also reveals many a new political ambition for all-important thrones including the one of the Prime Minister. Even Zagreb’s mayor Milan Bandic, who has till “yesterday” supported Karamarko, has reveled his newfound (?) ambition to put forth his name as candidate for Prime Minister at snap elections, for which he is suddenly raising his other hand. Bandic comments on his stand with the worn-down cliché “…there’s no love (meaning lasting devotion) in politics.” (HRT TV news 18 June 2016)

As to the findings of conflict of interest against Tomislav Karamarko, leader of HDZ, these do not seem to have shaken HDZ’s resolve to keep him at the party’s helm for the time being, except with a number of members including Tomislav Tolusic, regional development and EU funds minister, and a political cadaver Vladimir Seks, who I think should have retired from HDZ a long, long time ago. A prominent founding HDZ member and former minister of science and technology dr Ivica Kostovic said for HRT TV news Saturday 18 June that his “experience since he had entered into the government was that he met perhaps 1% of people who were not in a conflict of interest”. (HRT TV news 18 June 2016)

Zeljko Reiner
President of Croatian Parliament
In response to president’s statement
Says that HDZ may succeed
in forming new government
and that new elections may not be needed

Indeed, being in conflict of interest seems to have been a dark legacy left from public office administration of former Yugoslavia. That, of course, does not excuse any continuance of operating with conflict of interest – it simply highlights the need to deal with it properly as cases arise and that seems to have been the spirit of Dr Kostovic’s comment.

Karamarko has wowed that he will take the Commission’s decision to the Administrative tribunal, as he believes he was not in conflict of interest as found by it. It would seem that the Commission had weighed against Karamarko a reported detail that he did not declare his wife’s business dealings with the Hungarian MOL at a reported government meeting, from which there are apparently no detailed minutes, when matter of arbitration regarding INA/MOL issue (i.e. taking back Croatian ownership prevalence in the company of national importance – INA) was discussed. But, reportedly he also did not participate in any decision-making at the said meeting, either. The latter then would raise some alarms regarding the credibility of the Commission’s decision itself. The Commission, as evidencing conflict of interest, reportedly also took into account Karamarko’s personal Facebook status, which said that he was personally committed to Croatia pulling out of arbitration with MOL!

Karamarko commented that his personal opinions are well known to the public but that he has never imposed them upon third persons. “I have never had a single meeting on the Government premises with the arbitration on the agenda … It’s possible that I have had meetings outside the Government with Josip Petrovic (MOL’s consultant) but INA and MOL have never been the topic of those meetings.”

Dalija Oreskovic
Photo: Dalibor Urukalovic/Pixsell

The Commission’s head, Dalija Oreskovic, commented that “Karamarko cannot separate his private opinions from himself as a public figure and that, in that sense, he fell into conflict of interest.” She added “he used his political influence in connection to his opinion about arbitration, so that the potential or possible conflict of interest in these personal opinions and public intercessions point to the finding that the official found himself in a situation where conflict of interest was realised…”

In defending himself against the motion of no confidence last Wednesday, Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic told the parliament that the real reason for his ouster was that he started resolving the dispute between INA and MOL, adding that someone was not pleased with it (evidently alluding to Karamarko). It will be interesting to see what the Administrative tribunal will decide regarding private vs public lives (opinions) of a public official. At this stage HDZ wants to reshuffle the government with a new prime minister (Zdravko Maric), with Karamarko remaining as the party leader and digging its heels in at this may work, but it also may not. Next week or so will show whether the worn-down cliché “there’s no love in politics” is actually a double-edged sword that can either damage or benefit HDZ’s efforts to survive in parliament without snap elections. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Croatia, Croatian government falls, Dalija Oreskovic, Ivica Kostovic, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, Milan Bandic, Tihomir Oreskovic, Tomislav Karamarko, Vladimir Seks, Zeljko Reiner

Which Way Croatia: Liberal or Illiberal Democracy?

June 12, 2016 by inavukic 33 Comments

Front: Tomislav Karamarko, HDZ president
Back: Milijan Brkic, HDZ Deputy-president
Photo: Goran Stanzl/PIXSELL

Next week seems set to shed light as to whether Croatia’s Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic has indeed been a weak Prime Minister, failing to adequately implement the needed reforms that were promised to the voters of Croatia at last elections, late 2015, and whether he has, as Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ claims, been more preoccupied with his own political niche and agenda that is in contradiction with the technocratic, professional role (towards implementing set reforms) he was appointed as Prime Minister to pursue.

Croatian parliament will, during the coming week, entertain the subject of HDZ’s (Croatian Democratic Union/ majority party in coalition government) motion for vote of no confidence against Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic and Oreskovic will, as announced, step before it in an effort to defend himself. Hence, the end appears nigh for the current lot of tortuous speculations, allegations against specific members of Croatian government and endless sensationalism served by the media. Next week, then, is likely to deliver some reprieve to the confused, angered and tortured public. Furthermore, the Croatian independent authority deliberating on whether there had been a conflict of interest to pin against Tomislav Karamarko, leader of HDZ and the First Deputy Prime Minister, has announced it would publish its findings around noon Wednesday 15 June.

Hopefully, then, next week is likely to shed some further directional light as to the source/s of the staged political crisis Croatia has been exposed to ever since February 2016 or earlier when vicious attacks began against HDZ’s ministers and leaders.

Many Croats in Croatia and probably all Croats living in the diaspora had, as they fought and supported Croatia’s efforts to secede from communist Yugoslavia and grow into an independent democratic state, did so in the expectation that Croatian democracy would be modeled on the so-called Western democracy:

• On Liberal democracy that protects the rights of the individual and has those rights generally enshrined in the law;
• On Liberal democracy that defends and increases civil liberties against the encroachment of governments, institutions and powerful forces in society;
• On Liberal democracy that restricts or regulates government intervention in political, economic and moral matters affecting the citizenry;
• On Liberal democracy that increases the scope for religious, political and intellectual freedom of citizens;
• On Liberal democracy that questions the demands made by vested interest groups seeking special privileges;
• On Liberal democracy that develops a society open to talent and which rewards citizens on merit, rather than on rank, privilege or status;
• On Liberal democracy that frames rules that maximise the well-being of all or most citizens.

Indeed, on 30 May 1990, at the inaugural assembly of the Croatian Parliament, Croatia’s first president Franjo Tudjman said: “The new Constitution of Croatia must be free from all ideological dissents; it must be based on experiences of creating a Croatian state and in the spirit of the most democratic traditions of modern Europe and North American reality and science of law.”

This month. 25th June 2016 will mark 25 years since Croatian parliament voted for secession from communist Yugoslavia and thus, put in place the Liberal democracy its 1990 referendum sealed as its future path. Croatians have always considered themselves as being more Central European in culture and geography than being Balkan. Hence, the democracy they voted for, by a staggering 94% vote, in the 1990 referendum, was a Liberal one modeled on the “West” rather than some hybrid of democracy which could amount to an Illiberal one; the one reminiscent of government or significant elites’ controls they experienced under communist regime in Yugoslavia.

Tihomir Oreskovic
Croatia’s Prime Minister
Photo: Marko Lukunic/Pixsell

The Financial Times’ recent article by Tony Barber widened my concerns about the slow and communist heritage stifled direction of democratic development in Croatia. Comparing the efforts signaled in 1990 for a Liberal democracy to the current and staged political crisis in Croatia one may indeed ask as to whether the crisis is associated with some political push to move Croatia further away from Liberal and closer to an Illiberal democracy, which has been taking hold of Poland, Hungary and perhaps Slovakia in Eastern Europe? Illiberal democracy “means a type of government that preserves the forms of democracy but falls well short of North American or Western European standards of freedom.”
So far Croatia has struggled in achieving the standards of Liberal democracy but the witch-hunt against individual HDZ members of the government and the feeling one gets that the Social Democrat opposition and its coalition as well as the Prime Minister appear to ignore and even downplay the individual’s right to a defense and due process against alarming allegations does make one question whether in fact there is a background truth in the thought that Illiberal democracy may indeed be at Croatia’s door, if it already hasn’t permeated in. One’s suspicions of this are ever more strengthened by the fact that the Catholic publication “Glas Concila” published 12 June a political commentary by priest Ivan Miklenic, Editor in Chief of that publication, which includes the following: “When the affair ‘the consultant’ (meaning HDZ’s leader’s wife’s consultancy business dealings with Hungarian MOL company prior to him being elected into current government) broke out in public and when it became more than clear that regardless of whether there was guilt under the law or responsibility, moral and political responsibilities unquestionably arose and instead of making moves that serve real common good came the moves that meant the saving of only one man (meaning Tomislav Karamarko, leader of HDZ) at all costs, at all high costs. There was no inclination nor will in the largest political party for the acceptance, the understanding and the realization of common sense reasoning in accordance to which neither a political party, or the Government, or Croatia cannot be a hostage to the interests of one person or one project… The question why the strongest political party, that has large merits for the creation of independent Croatia, is suddenly becoming incapable of recognising what it is that serves the common good, serves Croatian interests and what brings down that party and damages Croatia is likely to remain unanswered once again…”

Regretfully, it appears that this priest, the Chief Editor of the Catholic Glas Concila publication does not consider the rights of individuals as legitimate, as the most important rights Liberal democracy must uphold! This individual the above Glas Concila article refers to is indeed a member of the political party in government but in the eyes of the public he is still an individual with rights to due process that are same as the rights of individuals not in government. Indeed, to my view, the individuals in government must uphold and fight for the rights of individuals (including self) under any and all circumstances otherwise the door to illiberal democracy is wide open. How close reported Opus Dei activists in Croatia who are said to be among advisors to the Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic (e.g, formerly New York based Stjepo Bartulica) are associated with this appalling commentary in the Catholic Glas Concila is anyone’s guess, but certainly the guessing game does become easier once matters of possible influence are placed in the context of Liberal versus Illiberal democracy; the latter being considered as acting against rights of individuals and promoting pressure from political or other elite groups.

Zdravko Maric
Croatia’s Finance Minister
Photo: hrt.hr

If we look deeply into the fight Karamarko and HDZ are fighting right now it certainly is not about some conservative nationalism one sees in Poland, Hungary or Slovakia but it is more about individual rights as the cornerstone of Liberal democracy Croatia lost rivers of blood for in the 1990’s Homeland War. Those rights are of Croatia’s national interests and not some nebulous national rights those attacking HDZ and Karamarko are spitting out daily. Indeed, the faith in HDZ as a guardian of the cornerstone of Liberal democracy appears further justified by the fact that the party has Saturday 11 June decided to put forth Zdravko Maric, current finance minister, as the next Prime Minister of Croatia, hence demonstrating that its fight in the political crisis has not been about one individual’s position – Karamarko’s – but about the principles of individual rights and due process. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)