Vedran Horvat

         The first round of Croatia's fifth presidential elections has resulted in a not very surprising outcome. With Social Democrat Ivo Josipović and his recent party colleague and rival Milan Bandić in the runoff, these presidential elections will become not only a scene of fighting and rivalry among the two strongest political parties - the HDZ and the SDP - but also a scene of intraparty fraction fights inside both of the parties.

They will also be like litmus-paper and show how long the parties can survive with the present configuration and which processes must be initiated/finalised in order for the identity borders of the present and (possibly) new political options to be as clear and as unambiguous as possible for the voters. This is so because the battle between the two parties will be led, if not formally through the party candidates for the presidential function, then largely through the preferences of the voters.

Though simple at the first glance, this statement is actually far more complex than it seems; the results of these elections may be an indicator of the new consolidation of power on the political scene. They can also prove to what extent possible rearrangements and modifications of the electorate occurred within the existing political spectrum, primarily to the detriment of the two major political parties, and to the advantage of the non-party populist option.

This option was already manifested at this year's local elections through rhetorics and habit, yet still dressed in party attire – at least in the case of Zagreb. And this attire has now, at least in the case of one of the candidates, been discarded.

Erosion of confidence in the parties, the parties in deep crisis

         Due to the weak authority of the presidential function the candidates are competing for, it is fascinating if not strange, how much fuss was made over the seemingly trivial stake in this campaign. One of the reasons for this is definitely the legacy of the 1990s which has probably at a subconscious level remained ingrained in the nation’s collective memory, warning of the remains of authoritarianism of the presidential function.

The public’s expectations of a president are far more- according to type and range - in line with the period of Tuđman’s regime than the actual authority and privileges today’s president in reality holds according to the Constitution.  Today, with weak authority and limited manoeuvring space, the president can merely start certain initiatives submit proposals or correct (but in no way alter) the Government's decisions, as well as co-create foreign, security and defence politics.

The second reason for this may certainly be the symbolic value of these results, which, at least on the level of messages that the president can transmit to the public from his symbolic function (if not on the level of real operating power), define the political development and the relations in the country. Direct voters’ support of certain political representatives definitely serves as a good compass to both ruling and opposition parties.

In this sense, these elections are almost becoming a referendum issue; the election of a president is very closely connected to the perception of Croatia as a country we want to live in the future, despite the fact that the presidential function cannot play the most important role here.

         However, despite the significantly low voter turnout in the first round (44%), the voters have, in addition to the general lack of confidence in the parties, perhaps estimated the relative insignificance of these elections with regards to the representative function of the future president. The results speak not only of the crisis of representative quality in society (as well as democratic deficit), but also of deep cracks in the parties themselves, which are far greater than mere fraction differences.

In this sense, the candidacy of both candidates, and especially of Milan Bandić, puts the first two major Croatian political parties in great distress. The accumulation of personal political influence and the fact that it is at all allowed is closely and unbreakably connected to the corruptionist-clientelist model of ruling and managing in the country (Zagreb especially!) which has up until now not been dealt with in a more decisive and radical manner.

Both the SDP and Croatia are now paying a far greater price than the one that could have been paid at the very beginning, when it was still believed that things would not go out of control and that the corruption octopus the media loves to talk about would not grow so large.

Even though the election of a candidate who is offering a pro-European and fair future, and who is moulding the society in a progressive direction is unquestionable, we must not forget that both candidates come from the same party framework which has (out of both justified and unjustified reasons) allowed and tolerated non-transparent practices and deals of one of its leading men. The same one it is now fighting against.

         As a former Social Democrat and one of the party’s veterans, Bandić now brings into question the SDP’s power in Zagreb which he won in this-year’s May elections (2009) as mayor. He will also definitely take away a certain number of voters from the party, voters who were inclined to the SDP only because of a fondness for Bandić, especially in the outlying districts of Zagreb and in Croatian rural areas.

Thirdly, Bandić may even pull a number of his supporters and therefore additionally, though not necessarily (!), weaken the SDP. On the other hand, it is not a novelty that Bandić has deeply penetrated the HDZ electorate, which now in the runoff remains without its candidate. Even though there are no voices of support directed towards Bandić from the HDZ leadership, the party electorate is far closer to Bandić than to the "just", pro-European candidate Ivo Josipović in terms of values and habit.

In this respect, the appearance of the "non-party", independent candidate Milan Bandić in the runoff presidential elections is not only significant, but has also greatly staggered the current inclinations of the two major parliamentary parties’ electorate.  

"Man of the Party" Against the Parties

         The fact that a person who wove and constructed his political power through his party is now attacking the same partitocracy in his campaign is quite worrying, and it should definitely ring some alarm bells for the voters. Obviously alarm bells will not go off to those who equate corruption and influence peddling with competence and success.

Besides that, leading Zagreb for almost a decade (directly and indirectly) was always accompanied by a series of corruption affairs and was characterised as shady, non-transparent and clientelistic behaviour. In what way and with which arguments can the same candidate now claim that he will be a corrective instrument if elected for president and that he will stand up for, or even enter the fight against corruption?

In this sense, Bandić openly underestimates the public, plainly sneering at democratic achievements and clearly revealing the collective dementia which enabled him to enter the run-off elections.

         The very discourse of the campaign in the second round has been unnecessarily and excessively characterized by political kitsch from the very beginning. Polarization is absolutely logical in a highly personalized duel of this type, but it unnecessarily enters the irrational sphere assuming an eschatological dimension of the battle between "light and darkness" reminding us of the rhetoric of George W. Bush.

It is not disputable that the Croatian public, thus the voters included, is if nothing symbolically facing a referendum election; one of the candidates represents a modern, urban, progressive and pro-European Croatia; while the other represents what is in Croatia contemptuously marked as Balkan; backward, traditional and coarse.

         If we just for a moment believed that this was not a spin, we would think that Bandić is along with the presidential campaign also preparing for possible failure by creating a framework for a new social democratic party. If we add the possibility of forming a new party framework around the future former president Stjepan Mesić in the first part of 2010, the party scene suddenly becomes much more diverse - possibly a new chance for party pluralism and an opportunity for a new wave of democratic processes.

         And last, but not least, the new development which rose to the surface with the beginning of the campaign for the runoff is also significant. There was a dislocation of sovereignty or autonomy (and thus also responsibility) of both presidential candidates; and the trigger was first pulled by Bandić.

Thus, the question of political responsibility was shifted in a conspiracy manner somewhere to the shady background of the "real bosses". "Remote-control" candidates which have been reduced to pawns of either the recent prime minister Sanader (Bandić) or the chief of the Social Democrats Milanović (Josipović), have inconspicuously introduced a new topic to the current discourse.

Where are the real levers of power and inter-influence; are the presidential elections only an introduction to a new negative, and possibly, dangerous scenario - the return to authoritarism? However, the main enigma is still related to campaign financing - what is the capital, motive and agenda standing behind the candidates? The differences here are more than obvious - and in favour of Ivo Josipović.

Referendum-Like Elections - the EU or the Balkans?

         According to the opinion of a growing part of the public, Bandić's victory must not be allowed; it would be a natural disaster. For Croatia as a country on the threshold of the European Union, his victory would just confirm the stagnation of democratic reforms and confirm the danger of populism for democratic processes which are, at least when speaking of social transformation, still in an initial phase in Croatia.

 Bandić’s possible victory would be viewed as a triumph of populism after which the almost boring Croatia, nearly an EU member, would collapse back to the chaos and instability of the Balkans where both corruption and injustice assume a legitimate institutionalized form. In this sense, these elections truly are a turning point; not only for the further development of political parties and democracy, but also for the path which Croatia intends to and may take.

A joke has already begun to circulate among the public that only Zagreb and its citizens would directly benefit from Bandić’s victory by getting the opportunity for "a new beginning". We can only hope that this time a university law professor will have more luck in the election run with Milan Bandić.[1]

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