Croatia elections: possible scenarios

A dialogue with Toni Gabrić, editor in chief of the Croatian independent media H-Alter

What is your take on the outcome of the recent elections, especially regarding key topics such as emigration, youth employement, corruption, and institutional stability, which shaped much of the debate during the campaign?

The results show that Croatia is firmly cemented in the right wing camp: out of 151 seats in the parliament, 86 were won by parties from the right and extreme right spectrum, such as HDZ (Croatian Democratic Community), Most, and Domovinski Pokret (Homeland Movement). It is first clear that many voters living in Croatia do not mind the corrupt nature of the HDZ, a party that in the last few years only had thirty of its ministers and representatives that had to leave their seats due to suspicion of corruption. In addition to that, parties from the left camp did not offer clear development policies and programs during the election campaign. The feeling of hopelessness in the population will persist, fueling further emigration. Since Croatia's entry into the EU, between 200.000 and 300.000 young people have left the country to find work in other EU countries, likely those who would  be more inclined towards liberal or leftist orientations. We're talking about 7-10% of the total population. Looking at the past experiences, there is now a real chance that HDZ will form a majority by "buying off" individual MPs who have entered the Parliament in the lists of other parties. Such outcome will favor the continuation of the current problems with corruption, and it would consolidate the trend of the "capture of institutions" which strongly characterizes the current political approach of the HDZ.

What kind of alliances are now possible among the Croatian parties?

Many consider the coalition of the HDZ and Domovinski Pokret to be the most realistic outcome. Difficulties may arise from the extremely authoritarian nature of the HDZ, which always had a hard time with negotiations, agreements and compromises. In addition, there is a negative burden on the relations between the two parties: DP was born out of a splint faction of the HDZ membership dissatisfied with Plenković's tactical shift towards the center, explicited by actions such as ratifying the Istanbul Convention or entering in a collaboration with representatives of the ethnic Serbs. In addition, Plenković is not inclined to form a coalition with DP because it would shake his image as a reformist, neoliberal right-winger.

In Croatian political history, HDZ kept the neo-fascist parties under its control without the need to form an official coalition with them. Such a policy was carried out by Franjo Tuđman in the early nineties, who needed other small and uninfluential right-wing parties to mask the ultra-right elements in his own group. Today, Plenković no longer has the ability to control parties to the right of his own (primarily DP and Most) as Tuđman had, so now he is forced to consider to form a coalition. If such a coalition takes place, it would represent the most right-wing government in the 34 years of independent Croatia. Although I am personally more inclined to the thesis that DP represents the true face of the HDZ. Namely, the DP openly says what the HDZ covers in dissimulation.

Another scenario may be that the Social Democrats, with the help of the President of the Republic, try to gather all the opposition parties under a sort of "anti-corruption" coalition. This would require great negotiating skills and a lot of political will, and such a government would still be extremely unstable.

A third option, the most realistic in my view, is a combination of a formal HDZ coalition with minor parties, sustained by the parliamentary representatives of ethnic minorities (there are 8 of them in the parliament) and the acquisition of individual representatives from other parties by the HDZ.

How may these elections impact local minorities?

Let's remember that "Homeland Movement" gained its greatest popularity 7-8 years ago, when its members smashed official plaques with Latin/Cyrillic inscriptions of institutions in Vukovar, and directly opposed the constitutional right of Serbs to officially use Cyrillic in the local communities where they are represented on a sufficient scale.

A government with both DP and HDZ will not reflect well on the conditions of the Serbs, and probably the Roma people as well. Serbs and Roma would be extremely disturbed by a Croatian government with clear characteristics of neo-fascism, given their experiences from World War II. A HDZ-DP coalition would certainly have an ideological impact on the country's cultural life, reinforce revisionism in relation to the Second World War and the 1991-95 war, and affect the position of more liberal-oriented organizations from the civil society, the media, and so on. On the other hand, we will witness the strengthening of the already enormous influence of the Roman Catholic Church and civil society organisations from the ultra-right.

How will the 8 representatives of the minorities, which traditionally support the government of any colour, accept a collaboration with a government that includes DP and its extreme-rightwing position?

Among the 151 seats in the Croatian Parliament, 8 seats are pre-determined for representatives of ethnic minorities: three for representatives of the Serbian minority, and one each for Italians, Roma, Bosniaks, Czechs/Slovaks and Hungarians. It is understandable that Serbs and Roma will not agree to a coalition with explicit neo-fascists, due to the genocide in 1941 – 1945 and the open intolerance and persecution in the 1991 - 1995 war. Moreover, the DP has repeatedly stated that it does not want to form a coalition with representatives of the Serbs either. In addition, all the eight minority representatives claim that they have formed a block and that they will not split. However, they express this position through statements such as that one should "behave with common sense", "responsibly", or that they are "responsible for the stability of the government". It is an open question how solid their announcements of a joint group are, that is, whether the right-wing coalition, if formed, will still win over any of them; so far, it is least likely that they will be Serbs. As I have already said, the most likely outcome of the political situation in which Croatia finds itself after the parliamentary elections on April 17 is that the HDZ "buys" as many hands in the Parliament as it needs to form a government.

How will these elections reflect on Croatia's neighbourhood policies in the former Yugoslav space?

It is very difficult to talk about it now. Croatia traditionally plays a double game against Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the one hand, it supports its entry into the EU, and on the other hand, it destabilizes it with its alleged support for the ethnic Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina. All of them have Croatian citizenship, and participate in the elections to the Croatian parliament, which was one of the "achievements" of Franjo Tuđman's separatist policy on Bosnia. To the extent that if Serbia supports the secession of the Bosnian „Republika Srpska“, Croatia will support the irredentist movements among BiH-Croats. Croatia and Serbia have been in this hidden alliance from the beginning: conflicts and misunderstandings between the two countries have been mutually beneficial to the nationalist movements for decades. Judging by the previous actions of President Milanović, the obvious leader of the SDP, there would not be any significant changes from the Croatian side in the unrealistic event of the formation of a SDP-lead coalition.