Croatia: Political Heads’ Pursuits As In “All Quiet on the Western Front”

The much-lauded German adaptation of the classic war novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque, clinched the Academy Award for best international feature film in March of this year with its timely anti-militarist message as far as current war in Ukraine is concerned but also as far as the destiny of war veterans of the Croatian Homeland War of the 1990’s is concerned. Remarque’s novel, published in 1929, paints a portrait of a generation that leaves school for the front and ends up perishing in World War I from 1914 to 1918. Come 2023 in Croatia. With the relentless intolerance and increasingly aggravated brawls between Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and the country’s President Zoran Milanovic the above Oscar-winning movie is eerily topical – their evident pursuit of nerve-pulling populism digs a grave, deeper and deeper, for the heroes that fought for Croatia’s independence and secession from communist Yugoslavia! Here and there, each will throw around some symbolic gesture or phrase in respect and crucial for freedom of the 1990’s Homeland War but, in reality and essence, their intentions and efforts rest in erasing it and resurrecting former communist Yugoslavia, even though they may, falsely, label it antifascist.  Constant conflicts intrusively played out in the public arena, fortunately verbal, but no less exhausting and ominous, mark almost the entire period of overlapping mandates of the two leaders of Croatian politics, President of the Republic Zoran Milanovic and Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic. The recently delivered President Milanovic’s speech to the nation and the reaction of Prime Minister Plenkovic suggest that this conflict will certainly last until the summer of 2024, and probably until the beginning of 2025; the entire mega elections year approaching. Whether it will continue after that period largely depends on whether the two, the Head of State and the Government, by their own will, and especially by the will of the voters, retain the positions they hold based on the election results.

Given that, in their positions, neither appears politically threatened by anyone – neither is anyone currently profiled as a potential presidential candidate, nor does the diluted and, therefore, weak opposition offer a more serious prime ministerial candidate and program nor does any palpable fraction within the ruling HDZ party. In short, it suits both men to counter each other – it keeps them both on the frontlines of conversation in all homes and around all coffee shop tables! While I have written before about the alarming political crisis in Croatia that has its roots in both the Office of the President and the Cabinet of the Prime Minister, the sickening lack of collaboration and extreme intolerance, as far as the public eye can see and the Croatian nation pulse can feel, between the country’s President Zoran Milanovic and its Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic continues. This cancerous situation, metaphorically speaking, is evidently purely political and perhaps agreed upon behind the curtain or under the table to the dire detriment for the country and its citizens who spilled rivers of blood during the 1990’s for its independence. Each blames the other, each expects an apology from the other, and neither gives “a farthing” for their duty as the elected leaders of state to communicate effectively on important matters of the state.  

Among other things, in his speech to the nation on June 6, 2023, President Milanovic said the following: “since the Croatian Constitution – to which I swore an oath – obliges me to take care of regular and coordinated activities, as well as the stability of the state government, I decided to warn the Croatian public to the serious threat to the constitutional-legal and democratic order that the Government of Andrej Plenkovic is preparing.   Yesterday I was informed that the Government, in defiance of the Constitution, intends to place the Military Security Intelligence Agency under the direct management of the Ministry of Defence.   Instead of following the constitutional procedure for appointing the director of the Military Security Intelligence Agency and contrary to the established democratic practice, the Government prepared an unconstitutional solution according to which the temporary head of the Agency would be appointed and dismissed by the Minister of Defence.   I want to be clear: it is Andrej Plenkovic’s political attack on the constitutional order and democracy, which returns Croatia to the era when the intelligence services were under the direct control of the ruling party.”

On June 7, 2023, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic referred publicly to the above-mentioned statements of the President of the Republic, saying that due to the form of the address, he first asked himself whether a war or a new epidemic had broken out, whether there had been a major earthquake, a huge flood, a fire, a terrible accident in Croatia, and that the Government had not heard about it. It appears that Plenkovic may in fact be the one to blame for the appalling and non-existent communication between the Prime Minister and President (Plenkovic had that streak or evident arrogance when Kolinda Gabar Kitarovic was President, for she complained in public about it and her helplessness in establishing a working relationship with Prime Minster Plenkovic ) that forced President Milanovic, faced with Plenkovic’s repeated rejection to meet with Milanovic, in making a speech, a cry, to the nation about it (?).   “Then I wondered if maybe it wasn’t a holiday? When it’s not Christmas, it’s not even New Year’s, and it’s not National Day either. Nothing of what is usual for the form of address by reading from a meter in a few minutes,” Plenkovic said, commenting the (to him) extremely unusual form of address by President Milanovic. “He (Milanovic) assumed that this way of addressing avoided the risk of eliminating the presence of some journalists from certain newsrooms or the risk of answering possible questions….”! How arrogant of Prime Minister Plenkovic. Not only does he seem to adorn himself as a mind-reader but attempts to denigrate the very important facility of a President’s Address to the Nation. Reminding that cooperation cannot continue as if none of this had happened, Prime Minister Plenkovic said that communication between institutions can be done in numerous ways. It can be done directly, he added, but there are prerequisites for that – cultural, normal, and cooperative communication at the level of what is appropriate for behaviour in the public political space. Since there is no such thing, then there are no direct contacts, he said. Communication can be in written form, as well as through associates, and that communication, he asserted, exists.   Prime Minister Plenkovic asserted publicly  that there is no constitutional crisis, but there is a “false thesis of the President of the Republic who pretends to be the head of the opposition“.   President Milanovic had on 6 June invited the Prime Minister Plenkovic to an urgent meeting at which they could seek to agree on a candidate for the new director of VSOA/Military Security Intelligence Agency and the next day Plenkovic stated that such a meeting will not take place until Milanovic apologises! Given that he, yet again, expressly rejected what the president asked of him, Prime Minister Plenkvic obviously blames the conflict exclusively on the President, his messages and behaviour, and apparently, he does not even need cooperation with him because this type of conflict with this type of opponent it fits him personally, not Croatia, perfectly in the political and other collateral senses.  

Today, their verbal conflict is, in fact, a real political war, a Cold War, which has recently gained a very violent extension, eagerly fanned by the media and other actors that stand at a decent distance, except in protocol situations, in which the poles of this conflict pretend that they do not exist with each other, in the same space or country. Even the blind can see that a major shift upwards in the numbers of eligible voters actually voting in 2024 elections is the only tool that will rid Croatia of this political vermin at the head of Government and Office of the President. The Cold War between them has translated into a real war (by stealth ?) that is attacking Croatia’s demography and chasing rivers of young people out, bankrupting the economy, concealing horrific and widespread corruption, belittling the independence-bearer, the Homeland War…The anger and disappointment on the streets is almost paralysing and I hope that such a “paralysis” will fixate the masses into strong and successful action for change for the better, if not lustration! Ina Vukic