ELECTIONS DUE IN 2007 ALREADY SHAPING CROATIAN POLITICS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ZAGREB 001460

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL PGOV HR
SUBJECT: ELECTIONS DUE IN 2007 ALREADY SHAPING CROATIAN POLITICS

REF: Zagreb 1405


1. (SBU) Summary and comment: Early elections remain unlikely as
the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) holds on to enough
coalition partners to pass a budget and approve (with additional
opposition support) continued overseas troop deployments.
Nevertheless, general elections are due by November 2007; as neither
the HDZ nor major opposition Social Democrats (SDP) can currently
count on enough votes to form a government alone, each will almost
certainly have to seek partners. With eleven months to go, smaller
parties are already actively considering pre- and post-election
alliances and working to increase their chances of becoming part of
a ruling coalition. This competition over the middle-of-the-road
votes up for grabs will probably act to moderate political rhetoric
from the left and right, and ensures that the next government, like
the present one and its predecessor, will keep Croatia on the path
to the EU and NATO. End summary and comment.


2. (U) Prime Minister Sanader told the press in late November that
elections were due only in November 2007, and not before. He had
made the same statement before, but this time he repeated it in
reply to far-right Croatian Party of Rights (HSP) President Anto
Djapic -- thus far Sanader's informal ally -- who had expressed his
strong disagreement with Sanader and his government for keeping his
local coalition partner Branimir Glavas in custody over war crimes
charges (Reftel). This event marked the return of the HSP to the
opposition benches, trimming the ruling coalition's majority down to
the bare minimum. This majority is enough to enact the budget and
pass most of the laws the government needs to pass, but the HDZ will
have to depend more heavily than ever on its junior partners:
liberals, pensioners and national minorities, at a time when any of
those may well decide to look the other way for new allies.

Strange bedfellows: Liberals and Farmers
--------------


3. (U) The nominally liberal Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS)
has already made the first step out of coalition with the HDZ. In
October the HSLS signed a general agreement of cooperation with the
traditional and conservative Croatian Peasant Party (HSS). The
agreement was largely motivated by an extensive survey of voters
that showed that a) the two parties' voters would like to see such
cooperation and b) many respondents desired a stronger "political
center" which both parties claim as their environment. The HSLS
simply needs such a coalition to make the five percent threshold,
while the HSS needs a junior partner if it wants to increase
significantly its representation in Parliament, because the formula
of seat distribution works to the advantage of the biggest parties.



4. (SBU) More than a month after the signing of the HSS-HSLS
agreement, its scope and contents remain unclear. The parties have
undertaken to uphold each other's initiatives in Parliament, but no
joint action has materialized yet. It is equally unclear to which of
the two biggest parties the HSS and HSLS would eventually turn for
coalition. The HSS is now in opposition, and thus implicitly closer
to the SDP; the HSLS is part of the HDZ-led government and its
relations with its one-time ally SDP are still upset. HSLS Vice
President Zlatko Kramaric told the Embassy his party was "closer to
Sanader, but not necessarily to the HDZ." This is about as "clear"
as other HSLS moves, such as the above-mentioned vote on Glavas
where the HSLS first publicly criticized Sanader and his HDZ for
having second thoughts about Glavas's detention and then didn't even
bother to show up when the vote was taken. If it perhaps lacks
clarity, the HSLS is certainly not without ambitions. Rather than
going to either of the two big players, the HSLS plans to continue
adding other parties to its coalition with the HSS, Kramaric said.
He hopes that the left-of-center Croatian Peoples Party (HNS),
pensioners party (HSU) and regional Istrian Democratic Party (IDS)
would follow suit and join them in building the "Third Way," a group
that would be in a position "dictate terms" both to the HDZ and SDP.



5. (SBU) The HSS logic seems to be more down-to-earth. They plan to
focus their campaign on just a few topics: agriculture, pension and
health reform, decentralization and the protection of land and sea
from "foreign exploitation." HSS Vice President Bozidar Pankretic
doesn't view this last one as Euro-skepticism but rather
Euro-realism, as he explained to the Embassy in mid-November.
However, his President Josip Friscic said at a party assembly just a
few days later: "We are not Euro-skeptics but if we have to give
kilometers of our sea to Italy in exchange for its hand to lead us
into the EU, we have to say 'no, thanks!' If we lose the sea, we
will have to give up our land and forests tomorrow, and our people
are next the day after so we will all end up as servants." This
rhetoric is clearly used to attract HDZ voters disappointed with the
GOC's pro-European policies - basically the same nationalist
constituencies that the HSP is catering to. In this way, it makes
sense that the HSS was almost as strongly against Glavas's detention
as the right-wing HSP. The question is how far right the HSS can go
and still purport to appeal to the "political center."

Centrists still assessing potential alliances
--------------

6. (SBU) One of the parties that the "Third Way" reckons with is the
Croatian People's Party - Liberal Democrats (HNS). The same parties
that count on them criticize them for being too active in
campaigning for government offices way too early and way too
independently. In September and October, HNS Central Committee
President and Varazdin County Prefect Radimir Cacic toured the
country promoting himself as the next Prime Minister. His potential
partners objected to Cacic's campaign at two levels. First, there is
no race for Prime Minister in Croatia; the position is selected from
the party that does best at the elections. Second and more
important is the size of the HNS vis-`-vis its potential partners.
No popularity survey gives the HNS more that ten percent, and that
seems rather generous. Still, HNS continues to center most of its
political activity around Cacic as a model prime minister. Also,
party president Vesna Pusic has publicly marketed herself as the
next foreign minister, which angered her potential partners left and
right. "She is well-qualified for the job, but you simply don't do
it. These things are always a matter of political agreement among
partners," said SDP Executive Board Member Zoran Milanovic to the
Embassy earlier in November. Yet, the HNS is the only significant
political party that the SDP can surely count as a partner.
Politically, these two parties belong to the same part of the
spectrum and all they need to work out is personal differences,
especially in the city of Zagreb where sparks from their past
frictions can still be seen.

Social Democrats considering options
--------------


7. (SBU) The latest credible survey showed in late November that
the two biggest parties - HDZ and SDP - have lost some support, but
are still about twice as strong as anyone behind. The HDZ is
somewhat above twenty percent, and the SDP is somewhat below. One
reason for the SDP's decline in November is probably mainly due to
an affair surrounding one of the party's vice presidents - MP and
former justice minister Ingrid Anticevic Marinovic. The scandal
broke out in relation to the way her husband Marko Marinovic handled
a case as a defense lawyer, but it grew to implicate his wife Ingrid
Anticevic as an alleged abettor in a potential corruption case from
2002 when she was the Minister of Justice. As a result she resigned
as party VP, but damage was already done since the SDP chose
corruption as a main tool to thump the government with. As internal
issues are expected to dominate the campaign, the SDP will also
campaign on its "natural" issues, such as jobs, labor, pension and
health reform. The party has already appointed "coordinators" for
each of the ten election districts, whose job is to stay in touch
with the constituencies explaining the party program. Zoran
Milanovic -- who is in charge of the fourth district in northern
Slavonia -- thinks this form of fieldwork will eventually give them
advantage over the HDZ. This advantage is key, Milanovic argues:
whichever of the two parties wins a plurality, it will win the HSS,
HSLS, HSU (pensioners) and minorities to its side. And that should
be enough to form a government.

BRADTKE