Ping-Pong in Zagreb

It was clear that the whole thing would grow to comic proportions after the general elections in Croatia last November. In a live show on state TV, representatives of seven opposition parties that won the elections in the city of Zagreb didn't understand what Ivan Milas and Zlatko Canjuga of the ruling HDZ were saying. The HDZ message was clear: the fact that you won a majority in elections does not mean you'll rule Zagreb.

Positions were taken for the ensuing clash. Later arguments were just a variation on the same absurdities and there were even some offensively vulgar incidents.

In just five years, the HDZ has managed to compromise itself in running the city of Zagreb, including pretentious and tasteless construction projects which no one liked and wide-spread corruption at all levels. Zagreb is a big, rich city; business space, city fiscal income and other forms of income are something the HDZ does not want to lose. The Croatian press has been full of scandals involving the ruling party for years, even the Tudjman family. While the war was under way no one took much notice, but since last autumn public opinion has been changing and the HDZ will probably have an increasingly hard time exploiting the victories of war. The opposition keeps reminding everyone that the Croatian people were at war not the HDZ; demobilized soldiers are increasingly loud in their protests over poverty and unemployment; the Serbs, an excuse for anything, have left Croatia (between 3% and 4.5% are still there); the HDZ regime has to face a new reality and adapt and it hasn't managed to do that because of its primitive greed and suicidal obsession with carving up Bosnia.

The Croatian opposition understands what peace brings and, unlike the Serbian opposition, it adapted to the new political reality; it focused its energy during the election campaign on future problems. The outcome of local elections in Zagreb is the result of that difference in the understanding between the HDZ and opposition.

The opposition has named four mayors so far all from the Social Liberal party (HSLS): Goran Granic, Joza Rados, Drazen Budisa and Ivo Skrabalo. The moderate Granic was criticized for authoring the HSLS political platform which includes a strategy to take power in elections; the intelligent and calm Rados was criticized for being from Herzegovina; Budisa was rejected as a matter of principle; Skrabalo (described by Feral Tribune as this week's mayor) is a man with an impressive intellectual biography and great moral integrity and he's waiting to be rejected. Skrabalo said he sees this as a two week exercise.

In theory the game could go on forever: they name them, he rejects them. Time, which the opposition counted on, has done its bit: Tudjman is losing his nerve along with the population and the absurd is showing itself in all its grandeur.

Political analysts first said the HDZ could stall in the hope of the opposition coalition falling apart from inner tension helped by subversion and pointed out Milosevic's strategy in five Belgrade municipalities. But there's a vital difference here: Milosevic was much wiser and let the opposition have those municipalities knowing that they would fall to the temptations of power and that made everything easy. Tudjman's basic mistake was refusing to let the opposition have Zagreb and that strengthened their resistance to subversion.

The appointment of Mrs. Matulovic-Dropulic as mayor and the TV propaganda that ensued did not help Tudjman. The president's mayor met with an unpleasant surprise in city hall: she was ousted and the city assembly rejected the city budget proposal, demanded a revision of the city's financial operations and management and decided to control and approve all important city administration operations. That made the situation hard to sustain and the crisis is expected to be resolved soon.