GHOST IN POWER

Marinko Culic

Feral Tribune, Split, Croatia, November 15 1999

After full ten days during which all important Croatian institutions kept trying to prove the improbable - that our chief of state was in the hospital only for a short treatment, and that he would soon come back alive and kicking - on the eleventh day this impossible medical-political construction finally fell to pieces. Tudman's departure certainly won't mean the end of Tudmanism, at least not immediately and completely. Such outcome will be postponed until some new wind clears up the whole Croatian political scene, sweeping down slowly, but mercilesly from Pantovcak to other parties' headquarters..

Of course, he has remained true to himself. Even when he stepped with both legs on the thin line between life and death, Franjo Tudman, the controversial liberator with epaulets of a dictator, continued to rule Croatian destiny with some subcutaneous decrees. And in a way that has been the country's greatest challenge for the last ten years.

Because, mighty chief of state "decided" to get seriously ill just before the elections in which Croatia should finally receive its entrance-ticket to the democratic world, as if he wanted to use his own body to prevent this outcome. And, this has been effective. For days it looked as if the Croatian state, as an obedient child of a demanding father, would follow this idea, at the cost of bursting at the seams, but then a coalition of unpredictable medical and political circumstances gradually turned the events to another direction.

After full ten days, during which all important Croatian institutions kept trying to prove the improbable - that our chief of state was in the hospital only for a short treatment, and that he would soon come back alive and kicking, on the eleventh day this impossible medical-political construction fell to pieces.

For the first time we heard a report from his doctors issued several hours before the usual time. In this report "capillary bleeding" was mentioned, finally in a language more suitable for the drama of the patient on the seventh floor of the Dubrava hospital. obviously, by then there was no way or maybe even no will to continue to hide this drama.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH PUBLIC

Although the troops of party's eunuchs tried to build a wall of silence around Tudman's illness after his return from the Vatican, last week this wall began falling to pieces. The reasons for this are doctors' reports that have been manipulated from the beginning so much that they became counterproductive. When, according to Nacional, the patient "almost died" in the night between November 5 and 6, the doctors remained silent for two days, and finally spoke out in the afternoon of the next day. That postponed announcement for the first time failed to use the optimistic phrase that the patient's health was getting better, but this was only a short bout of sobriety: two days later the doctors announced that Tudman might soon leave the hospital. After this, these tight lipped physicians failed to do their homework twice, and missed to issue regular health bulletins. Then politicians took over the medical correspondence with the public. That's when Vesna Skare-Ozbolt scornfully denied the news in Jutarnji List about the patient's drama between November 5 and 6 (although precisely this newspaper noted that, in the early hours of that day, his wife Ankica visited the patient).

Prime Minister Matesa put on a doctor's coat the very same day. The emphasis was different this time, notably turned to the other side, with more political than medical ingredients. Matesa only expressed his hope that the President would soon recover. The next day, after a talk with Austrian chancellor Klima, he stated that "the President would get back to work in a few weeks", and that he would take part in the electoral campaign only indirectly. This was an official denial of the earlier gibberish that Tudman's operation was routine, and that he would soon throw himself into the whirlpool of the electoral campaign.

Instead, Matesa and Mintas-Hodak started emphasising something else. They claimed that all the state's institutions worked normally, and in accordance with the constitutional authorities. We can say that this put an end to the first, clinical phase of post-Tudmanism, and started the next one.

DISMANTLING THE SYSTEM

A discreet, but clear message was sent to the public- that the state could function without Tudman. Because, as Matesa emphasised, the ill President has well drilled his associates during the last decade, which means that the first team of state officials is no longer inexperienced, and that we shouldn't have doubts about handing the state over to them. Moreover, by adopting the previously rejected opposition's request not to dissolve the Parliament until the expiration of its term of office, this team practically made known that the highest instance of power is no longer in Dubrava. A part of HDZ also sent the message to the opposition that they were ready to negotiate the dismantling of the "semi-presidential" system. Of course, this sudden urge of Tudman's close associates to present themselves as something they have never been - autonomous and competent - didn't appear out of the blue. It has been produced by the news that have, although in small doses, unstoppably leaked from the hospital in Dubrava, even before the news about "capillary bleeding" broke. A day before that news broke, one of the key people in the Government was asked by his acquaintance why the Government did not allow to the TV and photographers to photograph Tudman, in order to stop speculations about his health in the public. The Government member only waved his hand in resignation and said: "There is nothing to photograph any more". At the same time, the unanimous opinion among the opposition politicians, some of whom are physicians, was that the most accurate description of Tudman's health was that offered by Andrija Hebrang, who said, after the operation, that the perforation of the large intestine was "a complication resulting from chemotherapy". It was the only semi-official admission since 1996 that Tudman has been treated for cancer, although thoroughly discredited by the fact that Hebrang himself signed many reports, claiming that there was no such an illness.

That is why Hebrang's statement functions only as evidence that Tudman's illness was, and is, first a political, and then a medical fact. Just as Hebrang kept secret the real Tudman's health condition, until the necessary non-medical terms to make it public were fulfilled (political disagreement with the patient), the same has been done by his former colleagues in power. Although there is a considerable number of physicians among them, some with certain reputation, the patient from Dubrava is only a symbol to them and represents political power. The amount paid to that symbol os proportional to its chances to reproduce their own power.

MAJOR LEVERS OF POWER

To speak more precisely, they treated Tudman's illness as a top secret as long as they estimated that the people believed that Tudman's departure would make them politically irrelevant. Only when the party officials pulled their act together, and when the public was informed that the state was in safe hands, then the capillary announcement was issued. From the announcement it was obvious that Tudman's health crisis was actually dramatic.

Just to avoid confusion, the previously mentioned people knew that from the start, although only a few had access to the patient's bed. It is well known in well informed circles, that the first person to speak at the already notorious meeting of the top party and state officials held after Tudman's urgent operation, wasn't Ljerka Mintas-Hodak, who tried to warm up the throne on this occasion, but Prof. Dr. Branimir Jaksic. This was, therefore, first-hand information, and there's no reason to suspect that the physician who signed all the later reports on Tudman's health condition lied even to the top officials, his direct superiors.

It is rather symbolic that Prof. Jaksic read this report sitting at the head of the famous oval desk, although without any special historical relevance. For years, cameras zoomed in on the sphinx-like torso of Franjo Tudman sitting at the same spot. Those present at the meeting must have already seen this vast emptiness toward which they have been heading, and if there was an idea that all three factions should close their ranks, this is probably where it was born. We should be prepared to watch numerous parades of new found togetherness in the ruling party, as was the case before all the previous elections. But, the line-ups never happened without Tudman giving the starting beat. Moreover, that was actually the only condition for a successful line-up.

Now HDZ is not only left without Tudman's beat, but it is faced with problems it neither expected, neither was prepared for. First of all, with Tudman's departure, these three factions would immediately have to deal with the core of what separates them, as the seats of the chief of state and the party would empty at the same time, and all three aspire to at least one of these two seats. But, even if they manage to agree on how to split these two major levers of power, it would still be only a smaller part of the job. They would still have to divide various other shares of the informal power - in the Army, Police and secret services, as well as in the party itself, economy, banking etc.- that they have acquired under the wing of the two presidential powers. And that would be hardly imaginable.

BACK TO THE KITCHEN

It seems that the three factions are ready to support each other in order to prevent a fourth from getting involved, as in the case of Vlatko Pavletic, who was cut down to measure as soon as his flirting with the opposition was noticed, as well as his too open enjoyment in the position of a temporary president, which constitutionally belongs to him. But, even after this, Ivic Pasalic came to carefully prepare Pavletic for the forthcoming, two-month long presidency. What is especially important here is whether Pavletic will decide to use his full presidential authorities, or whether he will agree to desist. This means that, in the present shaky condition, HDZ will not be able to reject the interests of even its least important pawn as easily as Tudman used to do it. Verified indiscretions prove that a part of HDZ people, whose retirement from politics was already announced, now say that they will stay, allegedly because they don't like what has been cooking, although it is more likely that they will join other cooks. This all suggests that people in HDZ, who have had no ideology beyond nationalism, will turn overnight into an open league of various interest groups. They will probably be surrounded by revolutionary extremist right-wing gangs, and will stay together only if they win in the elections a ticket to participate in power.

If they judge that this is also not feasible, it is possible that one faction, or two of them working together, destroy the party and reject the institutional methods of action and suspend parliamentary and presidential elections. In that case the only connection with legality would be the Government, which equipped itself this autumn with new executive and legislative authorities. In the worst case, the Government would also be rejected. In a more convenient scenario, in which this non-institutional march doesn't happen, great institutional damages would be avoided.

STRATEGIC RESERVE

No matter how paradoxical it might seem, this shouldn't be a reason for a celebration. If a coup doesn't happen, it will be because there would be no one to overthrow. During the last decade the opposition sometimes had very tough struggles with HDZ, mostly about the issues regarding the division of power, but basically it has been the outer curcle of the ruling system, or even the "regime", or at least its strategic reserve. This means that the opposition participated in the Tudman's era advocating nothing more radical than reformed Tudmanism, and that they were not less interested than HDZ, in preserving some national achievements of the Tudman's era.

That's why Tudman's departure certainly won't mean the end of Tudmanism, at least not immediately and completely. Such an outcome will be postponed until some new wind cleans up the whole Croatian political scene, sweeping down slowly, but mercilessly from Pantovcak, to other parties' headquarters...

Translated by Feral Tribune in November 1999