TRADITIONAL SLAVONIAN REGION GEARS UP FOR NOVEMBER

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ZAGREB 000145

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL PGOV HR
SUBJECT: TRADITIONAL SLAVONIAN REGION GEARS UP FOR NOVEMBER
ELECTIONS

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - PLEASE HANDLE ACCORDINGLY


1. (SBU) SUMMARY AND COMMENT: With momentum building toward
national elections expected in November, center-left parties in
Slavonia, the traditional rural heartland of continental Croatia,
seem less active and enthusiastic than those on the right. This
could be the result of savvy public relations efforts by the
right-wing Croatian Party of Rights (HSP),which recently hired an
Israeli PR consultant.


2. (SBU) Although Slavonia, long a bastion of rural conservatives,
certainly does not represent Croatia as a whole, the HSP hopes to
gain enough votes to become an indispensable element in any future
coalition led by the center-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).
In addition to activism and enthusiasm, the HSP has no past record
of "poor government" simply because it has never been in a position
to govern at the state level. Disenchanted voters may turn to them
for this reason, or simply choose to stay at home. All major
parties are still strategizing about the best ways to approach the
upcoming election season. This is the first of a series of
election-related reports. END SUMMARY AND COMMENT


3. (U)Embassy Zagreb political officer and senior FSN recently
traveled to Slavonski Brod and Osijek, the major cities of Slavonia,
often viewed as the traditional heartland of rural Eastern Croatia.
Each city is the center of one of Croatia's ten electoral districts;
fourteen members of parliament will be elected from each of the ten
districts, in addition to representatives of ethnic minorities and
Croatian "Diaspora," who are elected in two separate districts.

SLAVONSKI BROD: AS MARCH DOES WILL NOVEMBER VOTE


4. (U) Slavonski Brod, center of electoral District Five and
sixth-biggest town in Croatia, has just experienced the dissolution
of its local governing coalition composed of the right-wing Croatian
Party of Rights (HSP),center-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ)
and the Croatian Social-Liberal Party (HSLS). An internal power
struggle between HSP and HDZ officials has forced early local
elections in March. Interlocutors in the city characterized the
upcoming vote in Slavonski Brod as the best way to feel the pulse of
the Slavonian electorate prior to the parliamentary elections
expected in November.


5. (U) The HDZ built its campaign optimism on its own results in a
number of local elections held in the previous weeks in other parts
of the country. The HDZ had done well in numerous local communities
throughout the region, except at the elections for city boroughs in
Osijek (see reference below). The HSP boasted to Embassy officials
as well, claiming a constant rise, both regionally and nationwide.
This formerly extreme right party is expecting good results,
especially in the center-eastern parts of District Five, including
the towns of Slavonski Brod and Vukovar. After contracting a Tel
Aviv-based public relations firm, local HSP interlocutors stressed
to Embassy visitors that they are seeking a younger, more educated
electorate as a new base for their party.


6. (SBU) Croatian Bock (HB) is a party of little significance in any
other part of the country except Slavonski Brod. It is a
nationalist party of former HDZ members, closer in its politics to
the HSP than to its past associates. HB's influence in Slavonski
Brod primarily revolves around its leader there, Jozo Meter, a
former mayor and county prefect. While Meter hopes that good
results at local elections in March would lead to his eventual
election into Parliament later this year, his opponents doubt the HB
has much to offer without a strong presence in the rest of the
country. The HB is aware of that weakness, and has therefore
initiated the process of gathering a dozen or more miniscule
right-wing parties that are expected to unite in the spring.


7. (SBU) On the left, the Social-Democratic Party (SDP) and its
allies Croatian People's Party (HNS) and Croatian Peasants Party
(HSS) won the biggest number of votes on a joint slate in May 2005.
(It is worth noting a political defector from HSS had at the time
helped the HSP, HDZ and HSLS to form a majority and rule the city.)
One would conclude that the failure of that coalition would help the
original winners at the local elections in March. However, the
local SDP chief in Slavonski Brod Zeljko Racki was not so certain.
"People here vote as sports fans, not as voters," he said,
pessimistically, explaining it is still relatively easy to recount
stories from the war and scare people with "threats" from the other
side of the Sava river (i.e. the neighboring Serb Republic in
Bosnia).


8. (SBU) The local SDP chief stressed that part of the reason for
SDP's perceived failure in Slavonski Brod lies in the failure of the
central SDP to articulate clear messages that would relate to the
people and to their day-to-day problems. Particularly, he said, this
is the case in a town and region that are lagging behind the rest of
country in investment and economic growth. Although disheartened,
Racki was still hopeful that his party could get a plurality of

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votes and then try to find partners to form a government.

OSIJEK: URBAN AND LIBERAL TURNED POPULIST AND PAROCHIAL


9. (SBU) The mood in Osijek - the "capital" of Slavonia and the
fourth biggest city in the country - still has a taint of the
emergency circumstances surrounding the war-crimes case against
Branimir Glavas, the leader of the regional Croatian Democratic
Congress of Slavonia and Baranja (HDSSB). Since he broke away from
the HDZ almost two years ago, Glavas has managed to direct all blame
for the poor socio-economic situation to his former party leadership
(HDZ) in Zagreb, despite the fact he was once considered the single
most powerful man in most of Slavonia. Glavas has also marketed
himself as a "martyr" persecuted by an "evil government" in his
righteous cause of defending the regional pride of Slavonia, a
region that has long since felt neglected by Zagreb, said Drago
Hedl, award winning Osijek-based reporter for Feral Tribune.


10. (SBU) Biljana Borzan, a young medical doctor and SDP chief in
the city, explained to Embassy reps that Glavas won the first battle
by getting out of Zagreb's jail and being transferred back to his
regional power-base (see septels). Even some people from her own
party fell for Glavas's propaganda and felt sorry for the way the
government "did him wrong," she said. She was saddened to see her
city that had for fifteen years been run by a liberal mayor go to
the hands of those who have no program other than fueling people's
anger at Zagreb. Although the SDP is not traditionally strong in
Osijek, Borzan hopes that its chances will improve with the
assignment of Zoran Milanovic, a "young lion" from party HQ in
Zagreb, as campaign coordinator for District Four. Other opposition
parties in the city and the district would be happy even to make the
necessary five percent threshold to win representation in the Sabor.
As for the HDZ, the party appears to remain relatively strong in the
west of the district (Virovitica and Podravina Region). Its biggest
weakness in Osijek lies in the fact that its county and city leaders
don't live there, operating instead from Zagreb where they serve as
senior government officials.


11. (SBU) The number of votes for the HSP (Glavas's partner both in
the city and the county) doubled between two different sets of
elections in mid-2005 and late 2006. Partly this is due to the fact
that HSP president Anto Djapic is also the Mayor of Osijek, where he
has started a number of projects, in the style of the populist SDP
Mayor of Zagreb, Milan Bandic. HSP County President Danijel Srb
expects his party to win the single biggest number of votes in all
of District Four, despite the HDZ's strength in the western parts.
"Our strategy is that of steady growth, not coming to power at all
costs," Srb said, explaining the HSP would definitely run alone in
the elections and link up with others -- preferably the Croatian
Peasants Party (HSS) and the HSLS -- only afterward. Srb said that
Glavas's policy of regionalism would probably be short-lived in
Slavonia, where people don't have strong autonomist feelings as they
do, for instance, in Istria.

BRADTKE