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