Croatia risk: Alert - Opposition to overthrow government?

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Text of report by Croatian privately-owned independent weekly Nacional, on 13 July

[Article by Robert Bajrusi: "The Opposition Is Overthrowing the Government in September Over Budget Revision"]

In September, opposition parties headed by the SDP [Social Democratic Party] will try to overthrow Jadranka Kosor's government and provoke an early election. It is expected that, in early fall, the government will forward to the Croatian Assembly a request for a revision of the state budget, and if the opposition manages to prevent its endorsement, Jadranka Kosor and the HDZ [Croatian Democratic Union] will have to call an early election in Croatia. This is the piece of information that has been confirmed for Nacional this [past] weekend [10-11 July] by the leading members of the SDP. The basis of the plan for overthrowing the government lays in the recently changed Constitution, which now prescribes that a [budget] revision requires the votes of half of the total number of Assembly representatives, which means 77. The ruling HDZ-HSS [Croatian Democratic Union - Croatian Peasants' Party] coalition has 74 seats in the Assembly, and the SDP believes that, with firm cooperation with the minority representatives, they may prevent the endorsement of the revision and thus jeopardise Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor. Nacional's source claims that the SDP leaders had received guarantees from the representative of the Independent Democratic Serb Party [SDSS] and several other representatives of national minorities that they too would vote against the HDZ's proposed revision. In that case, the government is quite certain to fall, and a new parliamentary election is also quite certain to take place in October or November. A confirmation that the SDP is seriously preparing for an early election is the piece of information saying that they will appoint their special coordinators in 10 election units by the end of this month.

The opposition definitely thinks that the incumbent government is conducting a chaotic economic policy that cannot lead to economic recovery. They are convinced that the government will not have the courage to propose a radical version of the revision that would reduce the state costs and thus get the economy going, and believe that that may provoke dissatisfaction among the representatives in the Croatian Assembly who still support the ruling coalition even though they are not formally linked. Moreover, a referendum against the changes to the Labour Act should also be held in September, which undoubtedly represents anti government action. If a large number of citizens supports the labour unions' demands, that will powerfully shake the ruling coalition and probably cause the minority representatives to leave. In simple terms, it would be counterproductive for them to remain with the authorities that have lost the support of the majority of the population, and they know that, if the coalition of the SDP, the HNS [Croatian People's Party], the IDS [Istrian Democratic Congress], and the HSU [Croatian Pensioners' Party] wins, they will also need their votes. From this standpoint, the minority representatives are in a win-win [preceding two words published in English] situation.

Now everything is up to Zoran Milanovic, who, as the opposition's prime ministerial candidate, has to launch the overthrowing of Jadranka Kosor's government. Until recently, Milanovic was suspicious of the possibility of the ruling coalition losing the majority, but for months now he has maintained informal contacts with Darinko Kosor [chairman of the Croatian Social Liberal Party, HSLS], and Milorad Pupovac [deputy chairman of the SDSS and the party's representative in the Assembly], who are dissatisfied with the incumbent government's policy. Finally, the HSLS and Darinko Kosor formally left the coalition last Saturday [10 July], and Pupovac gave an interview to Vecernji List in which he pointed out that Prime Minister Kosor's government did not have ideas that could get Croatia out of the crisis. Opposition members doubt that the minority representatives will vote against the revision, and it is more likely that their representatives will abstain from voting or not appear at the session. They would thus show how they feel about Prime Minister Kosor's government and yet they would not explicitly side with the opposition parties. The point is that the government has the chance of collecting the necessary 77 votes in favour of the budget revision even without the three SDSS representatives and some other minority representatives. In addition to the 74 representatives of the HDZ and the HSS, there is also Ivan Cehok [mayor of Varazdin], who is leaving the HSLS, and minority representatives Denes Soja [representative of the Hungarian minority] and Nazif Memedi [representative of the Roma minority]. In order for the budget revision to pass, the three have to appear in the Croatian Assembly, and, by all appearances, they have decided to remain with the HDZ.

The responsibility now lies with Milanovic, who has to persuade the independent representatives that they would be better off suspending their support to the government, which has less and less public support. Milanovic has realistic chances of overthrowing the government, which the SDP members at all levels have been demanding of him with increasing intensity. When he lost the election in 2007, the SDP members gave Milanovic another term as party chairman because they expected him to do everything in order to overthrow the HDZ. In the past three years, Milanovic advocated the policy of waiting, which is partly understandable, given that, until recently, the HDZ had a stable parliamentary majority and, in 2008, it rejected the opposition's demand for a change of government without major effort. In the meantime, the circumstances changed, and the opposition has a good chance of provoking an early election. In favour of the opposition are results of public opinion polls, which show that the SDP-HNS-IDS-HSU opposition bloc is well ahead of the HDZ-HSS coalition. According to the results of the recent Nova TV poll, 44 per cent of the respondents would vote in favour of the Kastav group [the SDP-HNS-IDS-HSU coalition, also known as Kukuriku Coalition, named after the Kastav restaurant in which it was formed], which would secure 81 seats (without the votes of the SDSS representatives and the minority representatives), while the parties in power would get 32 per cent of the votes. The HNS is also insisting on the radical approach, which was confirmed by Radimir Cacic at the meeting of the Kastav Group in Beli Manastir, where someone from the opposition announced for the first time that the citizens could not expect the new authorities not to cut the existing social rights. So far, they have exclusively criticised the government and made very few specific proposals regarding what should be done, primarily because the opposition too realises that they will have to reduce the benefits. This is precisely what Radimir Cacic announced: "We cannot lie to the Croatian public - painful cuts are necessary. Not only has public expenditure not been reduced - it has increased by 1.1 billion kuna, and 89.4 per cent of the reserves intended for the entire year have already been spent. We are 21 billion kuna short, and Ivan Suker is like the wandering Dutchman [as published]. The lower limit of public expenditure must be six billion kuna, and if this government does not do it, the next one will have to [as published]."

The SDP's reasoning is almost identical, and if the opposition takes over, one of the first moves will be a reduction in the number of jobs in the public and state services. In that, an attempt will be made to preserve social peace by not touching the salaries and privileges of the majority of the employees in the administration, or, as a member of the SDP leadership told Nacional, "We have the experience from the time of Racan's government, when we got badly burned because we reduced the salaries of all the civil servants. We will never repeat that mistake again because now we know that it is better to dismiss 20,000 than have half a million disgruntled people whose income has been reduced." Before they get the chance to check whether they are capable of getting Croatia out of the crisis, the opposition parties have to replace Jadranka Kosor's government. Preparations for overthrowing it in the course of the coming fall have recently started.

Source: Nacional, Zagreb, in Croatian 13 Jul 10

BBC

Source: BBC Monitoring