OPPOSITION ALIVE AND KICKING, BUT POWER CAN WAIT

VZCZCXYZ0000
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHVB #0159/01 0391015
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 081015Z FEB 06
FM AMEMBASSY ZAGREB
TO SECSTATE WASHDC 5662

UNCLAS ZAGREB 000159 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, HR 
SUBJECT:OPPOSITION ALIVE AND KICKING, BUT POWER 
CAN WAIT 
 
Sensitive but unclassified, please handle 
accordingly. 
 
REF: 05 ZAGREB 1978 
 

r />maintained a relatively modest profile as
Croatia's main opposition party. While
occasional and sometimes pointed criticisms of
the GoC emerge from the party's policy advisory
committees, SDP Secretary General Igor Dragovan
told PolOff in January that the party doesn't
plan a centralized anti-government campaign yet.
He admits that the SDP is not ready for early
elections. Instead, the leadership is engaged in
a dialogue with its rank and file to determine
the best electoral strategies. The SDP is almost
certain not to enter into pre-election
coalitions, but expects the HSS and HNS to be
their partners after elections. The recent
breakup of an "unprincipled" coalition with the
nationalist Croatian Party of Rights (HSP) in the
Zagreb-area town of Velika Gorica suggests that
the SDP is unlikely to accept partners from the
right end of the political spectrum in the
future.

5. (SBU) Although the latest polls place them
ahead of all other parties - including the ruling
HDZ, the SDP still suffers from occasional
shakeups within. For one, its city and county
chapters in Sibenik in central Dalmatia have been
disbanded amidst infighting and disagreements
with party headquarters in Zagreb and are being
rebuilt under Dragovan's personal supervision.
Similarly, the party's popular but wayward Mayor
of Zagreb, Milan Bandic, has been criticized for
excessive friendliness with the PM and his
government. Although Bandic's style is often
described as autocratic, his popularity comes
from his image as a man who gets things done.

Consequently, he has grown to become a national
figure whose popularity ratings approach those of
Croatian President Stjepan Mesic and exceed SDP
President and former PM Ivica Racan.

6. (SBU) Yet Dragovan does not see Bandic as
Racan's successor at the helm of the SDP, much
less as the President of the Republic, which
observers believe will be his next political
ambition. Dragovan maintains that Bandic lacks
party support beyond his Zagreb base and has been
too controversial to last through a presidential
campaign. Dragovan thinks that Racan's deputy
Zeljka Antunovic has better chances to replace
Racan when the time comes, likely at the 2008
party convention. Other possible candidates
include Zvonimir Mrsic, the Mayor of Koprivnica,
Davorko Vidovic, the former labor minister who
until recently governed the City of Sisak, and
Ivan Ninic, the former chief of the disbanded
chapter in Sibenik who is viewed as the most
leftist of prominent SDP members.

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HSS - "NEW AND IMPROVED"
--------------

7. (SBU) Peasant Party Secretary General Stanko
Grcic told PolOff in January that the long-
awaited change of party leadership in December,
when county prefect Josip Friscic succeeded party
president Zlatko Tomcic, does not reflect a shift
in the general direction of HSS policies. In
spite of earlier expectations that the new HSS
leadership would move more to the right and
therefore closer to the HDZ, Grcic estimates that
as many as 80 percent of the HSS membership
prefer the SDP to the HDZ as a coalition partner.

8. (SBU) Instead, the party views the change of
leadership as a chance for rebirth. Despite the
peasant moniker, Grcic points out, the HSS boasts
one of the youngest and most highly educated
party leaderships in Croatia (the average age is
45, including many with doctoral and master's
degrees). To help spread the renewed energy of
these leaders, Friscic has adopted a policy of
officially encouraging inter-chapter competition.
As opposed to the earlier policy of regional
balancing, the new rules give seats in the party
presidency to the five county chapters with the
largest number of elected offices, alongside the
president and five regional leaders. Friscic is
expected to rely on the other members of the
presidency much more than his predecessor, who
tended to make all the important decisions by
himself.

9. (SBU) Like the SDP, the HSS stresses the need
for dialogue with its party base, which was
presumably neglected during Tomcic's presidency.
Grcic thinks that new president Friscic's
background as a county prefect, i.e. a person
coming from outside Zagreb, will help restore
communication with the rank and file. With its
traditional voters on the farm becoming less and
less numerous, the HSS will have to appeal to
other social groups, primarily to the working
class. In doing that, the party will focus its
political activity on domestic issues, such as
health, welfare, pensions, judiciary and,
obviously, agriculture.

10. (SBU) The HSS is also against pre-electoral
coalitions, Grcic explains, because running alone
is the only way to assert any party's real
strength. He views the SDP and the HNS as
natural partners in a new government, and is
against cooperation with the HSP and the Croatian
Social Liberal Party (HSLS),which he views as
"commercial" parties interested only in money and
high positions. He expects the disenchanted
moderate voters of the HDZ -- but also those of
the HSP -- to find the "new and improved" HSS
appealing.

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HNS - THE BIG AMBITIONS OF A "REGIONAL" PARTY
--------------

11. (SBU) The May 2005 local elections brought
the People's Party prefectures in the two

northernmost counties, but also the loss of power
in Zagreb, its main power base to date. This
fact left some observers with the mocking but not
completely misplaced conclusion that the HNS has
become a regional party. Of course, HNS leaders
counter this logic with the argument that the
party has never before held so many elected
offices. While this is true, party leaders have
far greater expectations than the modest six
percent that credible polls have been giving it
in recent months.

12. (SBU) During the second half of 2005, HNS
officials kept hinting that they would not mind a
coalition with the HDZ, now that the ruling party
had adopted "their" democratic standards. Asked
whether the party would prefer the SDP or the HDZ
as a coalition partner, HNS President Vesna Pusic
repeatedly said the party was focused on a
"mandate" for prime minister rather than on
coalition partners. HNS Central Committee
President Radimir Cacic, the party's candidate
for a prime-ministerial mandate, publicly stated
in late 2005 that he would prefer Ivo Sanader of
the HDZ to Ivica Racan of the SDP as a partner.
However, at the beginning of 2006, the HNS has
returned to the view that the HDZ has not done
enough, especially in terms of economic
development.

13. (SBU) Economic development, especially
regional development, is what the HNS will try to
promote through its political activity. HNS
parliamentary caucus leader Dragutin Lesar told
PolOff in late January that the party had sent to
parliament a number of bills aimed at financial
decentralization of the country. The HNS
proposes that all profit taxes go to the state,
since a vast majority of companies are registered
in Zagreb anyway. On the other hand, income tax
would be distributed regionally to help finance
the growing number of unfunded mandates facing
local governments.

14. (SBU) By turning to the strong personalities
of Varazdin County Prefect Radimir Cacic, who is
perceived as a businessman rather than a
politician, and Dragutin Lesar, who spices his
hard work in parliament with bare-knuckles
populism, the HNS appears to be distancing itself
from the professorial style of Pusic, who often
comes across as aloof. At the same time, by
relying on two strong individuals from the same
region, the HNS risks proving the point that it
has indeed become a regional party, and as such
only a second-rate player.

FRANK