<nettime> Cautiously positive results of Croatian elections

[Ivo.Scoric {AT} bbs.thing.net (ivo {AT} reporters.net)]

The coalition of six parties won a majority in Croatian parliament. 
The defeat of HDZ was foreshadowed for months and when 
Tudjman died it was bound to happen. Voters were primarily 
dissatisfied with the economic ruin to which HDZ drove Croatia. 
Only those who do not live in Croatia, and still romanticize HDZ as 
the party responsible for Croatian independence, voted 
overwhelmingly for Tudjman's dying party. I say dying because HDZ 
itself became an opportunistic coalition of three factions (Seks, 
Granic and Pasalic).

However, I would be cautious about announcing this as a landslide 
victory. The two leading parties in the coalition (HSLS and SDP) 
won 57% of the seats. The good news is that they have majority,  
but the "other" news are that we cannot tell that the representatives 
who come from different backgrounds and have different political 
agendas would be able to agree on voting together to preserve that 
advantage of having the majority. Meanwhile, Croatia is in the 
economic ruin (a little better, but still pretty much the same as the 
rest of the post-Yugoslav world with the exception of Slovenia). 
Whole industries were driven to bankcruptcy, others were sold at 
bargain to multi-national corporations, pensions are late, 
unemployment is high, the middle class is shrinking - Croatia 
shows all the trends of becoming a "third world" country. There is 
no guarantees yet that the new politicians are going to be less 
corrupted than the old ones.

Now the presidential elections are coming. The six parties 
coalition's SDP leader Ivica Racan is the candidate for the prime 
minister and HSLS leader Drazen Budisa is the candidate for the 
president. Racan was a very vocal opponent of the scope of 
presidential powers under Tudjman. Now he seems to be a little 
less concerned about that. He, however, may renew his concerns if 
he and Budisa start disagreeing if or when they get elected to their 
positions of power.

So, on a cautious note: it is encouraging to see democratic 
elections (however exquisitely complicated and elaborate for a 
small country) work in Croatia, it is a great relief to see the party of 
crooks (HDZ) lose, but we shall wait a little to see how the new set-
up will work before getting overly excited.

ivo



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