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 
 
¶1. (SBU)SUMMARY AND COMMENT: After more than a 
year of discord within the opposition, the 
parties of the former center-left coalition 
government are beginning to overcome differences 
and rekindle old partnerships.  The Croatian 
Peasant Party (HSS) and the Croatian People's 
Party (HNS), the junior partners in the former 
coalition, appear to have ended brief flirtations 
with the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). 
While still not formally allied, the HSS, HNS and 
opposition-leading Social Democratic Party (SDP) 
are now acknowledging, either publicly or 
privately, that they depend upon one another as 
political partners. 
 
¶2. (SBU) The SDP continues to grow in popularity, 
having surpassed the HDZ in recent credible 
polls.  Despite signs of internal turmoil, the 
Social Democrats continue to serve as the primary 
political alternative.  However, the party needs 
more time to link up with its membership before 
it defines a clear strategy in anticipation of 
parliamentary elections due in 2007.  The HSS is 
trying to make the best use of new energy gained 
after the change of party leadership in December 
(ref A) and let the public know it is about more 
than just peasants.  While the party shares some 
core conservative values with the HDZ, insiders 
say they are more likely to coalesce with the 
SDP, though only after elections.  The HNS is 
trying to fight its new reputation as a regional 
party, but to little effect, as it is promoting 
strong figures from - one region. 
 
¶3. All of these "traditional" opposition parties 
seem content to allow the current government to 
serve out its mandate through 2007.  However, in 
anticipation of the electoral struggle to come, 
they feel it is time to begin showing their 
differences with the ruling HDZ in more 
unambiguous terms than they did during the 
government's first two years in power. END 
SUMMARY AND COMMENT. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
SDP - BETWEEN GROWING SUPPORT AND INTERNAL 
CHALLENGES 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶4. (SBU) Rumored for a time to be forming a 
"shadow cabinet" to formalize their criticism of 
the GoC, the Social Democrats have instead 
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. 
 
------------------------ 
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. 
 
--------------------------------------------- 
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