Croatian Elections Unearth Old Tensions
Mr. Plenkovic addresses crowd on election night. Source: total-croatia-news.com
Croatians went to the polls for the second time in six months on September 11. The incumbent conservative government (HDZ) called snap elections as confidence wore thin in its capacity to effectively govern. Although the government still emerged withthe most seats (61 out of 151), they once again did not cross the majority threshold, and thus, coalition talks will ensue. The Social Democrats (SDP) took 54 seats, while the Most (“Bridge”) party captured 13, making them the coalition kingmaker. The Most party served as junior coalition partner to HDZ before the elections, but it is unknown if they will retain this position.
The previous government, led by Tihomir Oreskovic, lost a vote of no-confidence in June 2016 following Most’s departure from the government. At the time, HDZ trailed the SDP by 10 percentage points after a lackluster performance on economic reform and heightened tensions with Serbia. HDZ elected its new leader, former member of the European Parliament Andrej Plenkovic, to moderate its image and focus on Europe. Croatia, the European Union’s newest member, has recently emerged from a six-year recession and needs to take steps to lessen the government’s debt burden, which currently stands at 3.5 percent of the GDP.
In recent months, Croatian and Serbian government officials have traded barbs concerning an ongoing “rehabilitation” of genocidal symbols in Croatia dating back to WWII and the Yugoslav Wars. Specifically, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic called Croatia “the disgrace of the EU,” while his Croatian counterpart threatened that Serbia would never join the EU due to alleged mistreatment of Croatian war veterans. Another wartime controversy arose in Croatia as people began to use the Croatian fascist phrase“Za dom spremni” (“for home ready”). Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic attempted to lower tensions by relegating the legality of the phrase to the courts. Dacic replied that this was a facetious attempt to allow the phrase to be used, reflecting Croatia’s softness on fascism.
These heightened tensions affect the conservative government’s image and make it susceptible to extreme nationalists, but the HDZ is not alone in trafficking in high-stakes rhetoric against Croatia’s neighbors. SDP leader and former Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic suffered from a leaked conversation in which he questioned Bosnia-Herzegovina’s statehood and insinuated that Serbia’s Prime Minister, Aleksandar Vucic, should have been indicted for his wartime involvement. Vucic was a member of the far-right Serbian Radical Party. What became clear in this latest campaign is that, although the Yugoslav Wars and WWII are in the past, the past is always changing before our eyes in the Balkans. The HDZ had been battered by feuds with Serbia during its first tenure, but the SDP leader’s conversation proved that deep mistrust still governs the minds of Balkan governments and politicians.
On election day, though the HDZ was carried to a victory, civics lost out as voter turnout plummeted by almost 10 percent. The Zivi Zid (Human Shield) party expanded from one seat to eight on a populist campaign to get tough on banks and prosecute corrupt officials. Looking forward, perhaps we can hope for less showmanship, more statesmanship, and stern actions to reduce Croatia’s debt-to-GDP and to continue its economic recovery.