Elections in Croatia

[punisa]

I'm not really sure if its really newsworthy, but let me bring you the scoop :)
I myself usually follow political situations from less known countries, so maybe some of you would like to know the details on what is currently happening in Croatia.

Today is the final day of the presidential campaign in Croatia - masses went out to vote.
I personally boycotted the elections as (obviously) none of the two candidates are socialist.
But interesting thing is that both come from the ex- communist party, today known as SDP (social democrat party), but with certain differences.

Meet the people who spent millions of working class money during almost a month long campaign:

IVO JOSIPOVIC (polls give him aprox. 52% chance of winning)
http://s.seebiz.eu/files/img/2009/11/2/ivo-josipovic-078.jpg
- lawyer
- classical musician and composer
- upper class
- highly educated
- more left leaning then his rival: recently said that "Croatia must be painted red", referring to a left shift
- doesn't believe in God, proclaimed himself as agnostic
- believes that anti-fascist struggle (Tito's partisan movement) was the key point in Croatia's history
- rather clean in terms of affairs and corruption
- many say he is "too polite" and lacks charisma

MILAN BANDIC (polls give him aprox. 48% chance of winning)
http://www.ezadar.hr/repository/image_raw/103524/xxl/
- current mayor of Croatia's capital - Zagreb
- linked to numerous business crimes and corruption affairs
- some even say he is the leader of underground mafia
- strong rulership, he supposedly has an "army" of his own - collected from ex soldiers (from 1991-1995 wars), private police and security forces
- was an established communist in the 80's
- remained as a social democrat until recently when he quit the party in order to run for president
- acts as a very religious man - says Christianity (catholicism) is one of the most important virtues in his life
- although officially a social democrat he is much more popular with the right wing and extreme right wing. Church also openly supports him.
- he strongly attacked his rival Josipovic claiming that he is only a puppet of his party
- potrays himself as an ally of the working class, mostly a Berlusconi like populist aproach - one of his claims was "I'll give everyone a job".

So there you have it guys, if anyone is interested I can put the results here at the end of the day. It's definetely going to be a tight one, I'm really not sure who will be the president.
But on other hand I don't actually care to much, neither one of them is a true friend of the working class.
Croatia is currently in a very unstable position.
Goverment survived coup d'etat a week ago, with more similar ones on the horizon.
People loose jobs rapidly and standard of living is getting lower.

I walked around Zagreb yesterday and you can actually measure the situation by counting the number of poor people colleing garbage and digging the dumbsters.

[rednordman]

Coup d'etat? Sorry to sound ignorant but what where the conditions of that? Is there already a post on the forum about it?

As for the election, I agree with you that non are going to help the working class, but would edge towards Ivo. I find it very audatious that Milan says he will give everyone a job. If he was to pull that one of, i'd give him my respect however.

[punisa]

Coup d'etat? Sorry to sound ignorant but what where the conditions of that? Is there already a post on the forum about it?

As for the election, I agree with you that non are going to help the working class, but would edge towards Ivo. I find it very audatious that Milan says he will give everyone a job. If he was to pull that one of, i'd give him my respect however.

Yes "give everyone a job", you bet :rolleyes:
Coup was staged by the ex prime minister Ivo Sanader. But he failed to organize enough supporters.
Strange story, prime minister resigned out of sudden 6 months ago without giving any explanation why. And now he suddenly came back and tried to take back the power for his own, but failed to do so.
It was a classic political coup, luckily it wasn't backed up by any military. Actually the military itself aligned themselves with the new prime minister Jadranka Kosor.

The whole thing laster for only one day and since the government remained stable, there was not much news hype about it. Although CNN and Reuters reported it.

[rednordman]

Yes "give everyone a job", you bet :rolleyes:
Coup was staged by the ex prime minister Ivo Sanader. But he failed to organize enough supporters.
Strange story, prime minister resigned out of sudden 6 months ago without giving any explanation why. And now he suddenly came back and tried to take back the power for his own, but failed to do so.
It was a classic political coup, luckily it wasn't backed up by any military. Actually the military itself aligned themselves with the new prime minister Jadranka Kosor.

The whole thing laster for only one day and since the government remained stable, there was not much news hype about it. Although CNN and Reuters reported it.What political allegience was Ivo Sanader of? If he is of the far-right than it is a good sign that people where not behind him.

[rebelmouse]

What political allegience was Ivo Sanader of? If he is of the far-right than it is a good sign that people where not behind him.
not people but his political party friends refused him to come back. he was excluded these days from his political party.

[punisa]

not people but his political party friends refused him to come back. he was excluded these days from his political party.

Exactly as comrade rebelmouse said. It was an attempt to take the party under control, but failed.

Ivo Sanader was an autocratic leader of the HDZ (Croatian democratic union) which is not exactly far right, more of a right center, but its true ideology doesn't shine out too often. It's a choice for right wing voters.
Mainly beacuse Croatia doesn't have any powerful extreme right parties.

Stable goverment is not stable yet, there are rumors that another coup could follow very soon, probabbly after the presidential ellections. I guess it comes down who will become a president.
There are loud speculations that Sanader supports Bandic and that the two made some sort of specret pact to control the country.

Whatever happens, such political incidents are bad for the country and further create an atmosphere of cinicism and desperation among common people, the workers.

There was a presidential candidate who ran for president that wes almost extreme left wing, but he did not attract enough workers. His name was Damir Kajin and he is well known as one of the few representatives who are far left oriented.
Although I'm not really sure if his approach is going to ever be succesful, he doesn't talk much about socialism, but merly glorifies the achivments of the communist party.
But he was cool to say ta least :lol:

Here is one propaganda poster of Damir Kajin, notice the "leftiest" artwork: it reads - "all follow me"
http://www.jutarnji.hr/multimedia/archive/00230/kajin_230289S1.jpg

[The Red Next Door]

The second guy look like a typical corrupt eastern european villian

[Demogorgon]

Isn't the post of President a largely ceremonial one?

[punisa]

Isn't the post of President a largely ceremonial one?

Its much weaker then in the US, but the president still hold some powerful elements in his hands. For example he is the chief military commander and can also influence the government in terms of creating new policies and cracking down corruption which is on the rampage here.

Update - voting results:
1) Ivo Josipovic : 61,2 %
2) Miland Bandic : 38,8 %

[Drace]

- more left leaning then his rival: recently said that "Croatia must be painted red", referring to a left shift

Seems leftist to me. I'm for him.
The only reason to not vote for a socialist would probably be the expected bombings from Nato :rolleyes:

[cyu]

Seems leftist to me. I'm for him.


Sounds good, but it could just be posturing as well. There certainly is a long list of politicians who ran on leftist platforms only to turn out to be nothing of the sort. Personally, I'd never merely stop at the election of someone who claims to be leftist, but continue to encourage the electorate to take the leftist momentum forward, regardless of what the elected politician really wants.

[btpound]

Do you think given the current crisis that it has become more common to vote for left leaning politicians in a lot of different countries? I live in America, so my perspective is a little fucked, but I know here we elected Obama, who Time Magazine called "America's first socialist president". And UK elected Gordon Brown (?), who is left of Blair. Do you feel that people are realizing that capitalism is the problem?

[Manifesto]

Yeah I'm for Ivo Josipovic he seems more left and less corrupt. Also I don't trust anyone that says Christianity is one of the most important virtues in their life, just screams Conservative.

[FSL]

He is certainly not a leftist and I have no idea how can people suggest that. He might be a less repulsing kind of right-wing politician but right-wing he is.

That governments can get severely beaten and their opposition can gain resounding victories I think is a sign of how fluid things are right now. For example, the current president of Ukraine who was huuuuge just 5 years ago when he led the orange revolution will be earning about 3% of the vote in the upcoming elections according to polls. Other examples exist like in Greece where the conservative party got 33% of the vote, in the 36 years of democracy never did a major party earn less.

People are on the lookout for answers at the time and we can be sure that answers won't be given by any capitalist party. Even in countries where we are small now, we must increase our efforts. Otherwise, the media will constantly invent a new type of Obama who came to fight all the great interests, smash corruption and bring universal happiness only to repeat the same policies.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Seems leftist to me. I'm for him.
You should know that in Europe, red isn't just the colour of socialism or communism - it's the colour of pretty much everyone left of centre, including so-called "moderate social democrats" who support neoliberal reforms.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Do you think given the current crisis that it has become more common to vote for left leaning politicians in a lot of different countries? I live in America, so my perspective is a little fucked, but I know here we elected Obama, who Time Magazine called "America's first socialist president". And UK elected Gordon Brown (?), who is left of Blair. Do you feel that people are realizing that capitalism is the problem?

Gordon Brown has never been elected PM.

Look at the EU election results last year, 'left' parties (and of course here we mean social fascists and neo-liberals) were absolutely trounced.

Our time will come, but I fear it isn't now.

[9x19mm]

I agree with the boycotting.

What people dont understand is that there is no such thing as Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia etc etc. It is all YUGOSLAVIA.

When Josip Broz Tito was in power nobody called themselves a Serb, Macedonian, Slovene and such. Instead they called themselves Yugoslavs.

I think the only party any former-Yugoslav country should vote for is a Titoist one.

[rebelmouse]

I think we should refuse to vote for anyone and let's abolish countries :)

[Bandito]

What's with everyone taking a stand between two capitalist scumbags?

[Bandito]

Oh, yeah, and...

The second guy look like a typical corrupt eastern european villian
What's that?
Hollywood?

[Revy]

I agree with the boycotting.

What people dont understand is that there is no such thing as Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia etc etc. It is all YUGOSLAVIA.

When Josip Broz Tito was in power nobody called themselves a Serb, Macedonian, Slovene and such. Instead they called themselves Yugoslavs.

I think the only party any former-Yugoslav country should vote for is a Titoist one.

I agree that socialist parties in that region should be for a new Yugoslavia, but I don't see how that concept equates to Titoism.