OPERATION TUDMAN

Marinko Culic

Feral Tribune, Split, Croatia, November 8 1999

While Tudman hovers somewhere between life and death, Croatia is left without any protection from a coup. There is maybe one means of protection that hasn't been planned in advance. That protection could be in a relative balance of powers within the ruling party powers - in the triangle Pasalic-Seks-Granic - and each side would probably need help from at least another faction to take over power from others, but there hasn't been an indication of that so far. These three factions have been kept together only by Tudman's power and authority. Now, when the end of both is seen on the horizon, it seems almost impossible that those three factions could keep the party in one piece. The only connection among them could be their mutual interest to hide their ambitions to inherit the throne, so that they wouldn't be struck by the last lightning of president's vindictive wrath.

There is no doubt any more. As soon as Tudman gets ill Croatia becomes exposed to a latent coup, which can momentarily destroy its constitutional order.

Two typical scenes strengthen this impression. When our president was told in the Washington hospital Walter Reed, at the end of 1996, that he was ill with an incurable fatal disease, at the same time he received a message, allegedly from Pasalic, which had an equally shocking effect on him. He was informed that a relatively harmless demonstration in the main Zagreb square, which medically speaking wasn't more serious than a cold, was actually organised by some malignantly dangerous characters who openly advocated the return of Croatia to Yugoslavia.

Truly shocked by this silly lie, on his return to Zagreb Tudman attacked the opposition parties, and called them "red" and "yellow" devils. COnsidering Tudman's open hatred toward universalist ideologies of all colors, this practically meant that he denied these parties the characteristic of being Croatian. Although the informer from the Presidential court probably expected more than this, his denounciation has thrown the relations on the Croatian parliamentary scene to the level of an informal, but aggressive and unpredictable single-party system.

CONSTITUTIONAL UNDERWORLD

The other scene that substantiates the introductory statement took place after Tudman's operation in the Zagreb's hospital Dubrava. The public was immediately informed about it (although no one really believes in those diagnostic phrases), but a political gap has opened now, which far exceeds the one from 1996. It should be admitted that when Tudman's illness became known the Zagreb crisis, which became a synonym for the programmed constitutional anarchy, was on its end. A year earlier the parliamentary elections had been held, in which the ruling party had once again fixed its explicit advantage on the state level.

The current crisis takes place just before the elections, and HDZ is for the first time in the position of a likely loser, so that its only guarantee to stay in power can be to take over a part of the enormous authority acquired during the last decade by the founder and the leader of the party. It is clear that, if this should happen, the country would instantly fall into the constitutional underworld, and the methods of this wild "handover" of power would probably be in accordance with this underworld.

A prominent opposition leader says for Feral that he could easily imagine a reprise of the recent Armenian case (a better comparison would probably be the one with the older, Spanish case), which means that a group of "volunteers" armed to the teeth would run into the parliament, and make all members of parliament hide under the benches. This action, no matter how spontaneous it would seem, would be well organised behind the thick curtains in the informal centres of power, and it is hard to imagine that some governing body or a party would back it up, which is the basic difference in relation to 1996. At that time, a coup could have been done only by Tudman himself, which surely wouldn't have been better, but certainly more predictable, as it wouldn't have headed towards the snatching of the power he had already had, but towards preventing the others from getting close to it.

OPPORTUNITY FOR THE PHALANX

Now, however, we're dealing precisely with mere grabbing of power by those who haven't acquired their mandates in elections, or if they did, those mandates certainly weren't to run the country. It is still left to see whether these people can do that. In the previously mentioned Spanish case it didn't happen, because, after the end of Franco's rule, a faction was formed within the ruling party itself that was against the usurpation of power (and its leader Adolfo Suarez symbolically opposed it by refusing to hide under the parliamentary bench before the rebels).

Such a faction doesn't exist in the ruling party, and even if it does, it is not able to impose itself as an open advocate of the peaceful transition. The existing "moderate" faction is not prepared to take public responsibility for such developments other than that which can be made through lukewarm statements about readiness to respect the results of the coming elections. As there are no prospects that Tudman, in his hospital suite in Dubrava, will support this part of HDZ, it can be said that, while he hovers somewhere between life and death, Croatia is left without any protection from a coup, except maybe for the one that hasn't been planned in advance.

That protection could be in the relative balance of powers within the ruling party - in the triangle Pasalic-Seks-Granic - and each faction would need help from at least another one to take over power from the remaining faction, but there hasn't been an indication of that so far. Those three factions have been kept together only by Tudman's power and authority. Now, when the end of both is seen on the horizon, is seems almost impossible that those three factions could keep the party in one piece. The only connection among them could be their mutual interest to hide their ambitions to inherit the throne, so that they wouldn't be struck by the lightening of president's vindictive wrath.

DEAD SILENCE

A good illustration for this is a situation which occurred when the six opposition's leaders suggested that the Parliament should be dissolved on November 27, when its four-year mandate expires, and not on November 12, as it had been previously announced. Allegedly, Seks not only agreed on this with some opposition's leaders, but he also accepted the explanation that, during these 15 days, the Constitution might need to be changed. The motivation is clear. In case that, during these 15 days, Croatia looses its president, HDZ would no longer be interested in the present "semi-presidential" system, as the possible Tudman's heir from the opposition would also inherit all royal prerogatives of his predecessor.

The truth is that the opposition could be swindled and that constitutional changes could go in a completely different direction. The new president would no longer be elected directly, which was the reason for his Himalayan authority, but by the Parliament, and it is well known who has the majority in it. However, only a day later, HDZ stopped sending such signals, as it was obviously understood that loyalty to Tudman is measured by the trust in his doctors' reports. That's why Seks hurried to blurt out that president's health was "very good", while Ivica Ropus added that the Parliament would most likely be dissolved on November 12. He also announced a week-long consultation on this subject in the top of HDZ, which is a reliable sign that they are now racking their brains with dilemmas. There is no need to prove that this deadly silence about real proportions of Tudman's illness was made up only because of the internal party reasons, and that it has nothing to do with respect for the patient. But, as a measure of precaution, Vjesnik started these days a real campaign against those who allegedly disrespect president's illness. Among other things, it was strictly demanded from the journalistic organisation to sanction a reporter of Novi List, who wrote that, on his return from the Vatican, Tudman had "ash-coloured face and bulging eyes".

BASIS FOR CAMPAIGN

What sensitivity! And why didn't that same newspaper react when Antun Vrdoljak repeatedly stated that he had drunk champagne, which he had kept cool for that special occasion, when he had heard that Tito had died!? If this is the way to talk about compassion for someone's affliction, then it is obvious that the purpose of this action is a much more indecent politicisation of Tudman's illness, than a clumsy newspaper description. That purpose is to cause, in any possible way, public compassion for the ill President, in order to make a perfect basis for the election campaign, and, if possible, a guarantee for a new victory.

Some private weekly magazines have already took the bait, predicting that the picture of Tudman wearing a hospital gown will be a running theme of the forthcoming elections, which will leave his clumsy and confused opponents speechless. The public has, however, chosen a completely different way to sympathise with him. It is a bit distant, not intensive, nor completely indifferent, compassion for a man probably dying, who causes additional pity because of the grotesque secrecy with which he had surrounded his patient's nest. But, all this has little to do with Tudman as a politician, and even less with HDZ as a participant of the forthcoming elections. That party, consisting of latent organisers of a coup, whose passions Tudman stirred and kept under control at the same time, never really stood on its own feet. Soon, when it loses its leader, it won't even know where to go. So, this is the prognosis for the elections: Tudman's illness will motivate in a positive way only the hard core of HDZ voters, while the others will find their reasons to distance themselves from the party because of that fact, or to turn their backs on it as soon as possible.

Translated by Feral Tribune in November 1999