CROATIA

Slavica Lukic and Nino Djula look at the recent split in the Liberal Party (HSLS), one of the two largest opposition parties in Croatia, in the December 5, 1997, issue of the Zagreb weekly 'Tjednik' .

Vldo Gotovac, Zlatko Kramaric and Mlden Vilfan are seeking a hall in which they could initiate the new Liberal party. This will be the seventieth political party in Croatia. They are counting on the fact that in the beginning, it would be joined by the large part of the HSLS membership, from the ranks of those that do not support Drazen Budisa.

According to the information from Gotavac's circle, the new party could count with the majority of the liberal membership in Istria and Primorje - Goranska region, part of the membership in Dubrovnik, Split, Zadar and Karlovac, part of the Zagreb Liberals and the majority of Osijek HSLS. The weakest strongholds for the new Liberal party will be in Blelovar-Bilogorska region, where at the moment it is now counting upon only with Daruvar membership, while it will get meager support in Medjimurje and Koprivnica-Krizevac regions. The MP club in the Sabor is also going to split in half. As things stand, in the Upper House, of the six representatives, six are going along with Gotovac. In the House of Representatives Budisa has the upper hand: of thirteen members, seven will surely remain in HSLS, Gotovac and Kramaric are joining the new party, while it remains open what will the rest do. As far as the name of the party is concerned, a number of proposals is being examined, such as Croatian Liberal Party, Croatian Liberals, Liberal - Democratic Party and other.

The departure of the former president Gotovac, two recently elected vice presidents devoted to him, Kramaric and Vilfan and some twenty members of the new Great Council, are a consequence of a few months long dramatic division in the party, which culminated at the last party conference, when the party - due to the uncompromising relation of the two rivals and their supporters - literally split in half.

In the atmosphere of complete intolerance of the two HSLS factions, there was no will or possibility to speak about future relation of the Liberals towards the important contemporary Croatian themes.

According to the content of the polemics, it could be said that the program of at one point the strongest opposition party was reduced to who is for, and who against the co-operation with HDZ.

With the exception of the undecided, both Gotovac and Budisa factions came to the session with the intent and belief that they have nothing in common anymore.

The only remaining question was how to conduct the inevitable divorce. Drazen Budisa came to the Sabor convinced that he will be able to take over the power in the party in a more elegant manner, and that the balance of power will prove his convincing advantage.

But through the report of the Verificatio commission, even though Drazen Budisa got more votes than Vlado Gotovac, did not get enough of them to become the president of the HSLS. Budisa showed that he is not only threatened with political death by the minister's arbitration, but, even more so, by his advanced desire for power.

So, even though he was not given the right to speak, he stepped to the podium and proclaimed himself the president. He also spoke a sentence that could mark his complete political engagement in the last year and a half: 'Give me the keys to Amruseva /the location of party HQ/ !' This cry excited Budisa's voters to the level of an euphoria. The shouted his name with the passion used by the HDZ youth when it is expressing its feelings towards its party president.

The result of the intra - party elections was devastating for both Gotovac and Budisa: Budisa did not get the result with which he could return to the HSLS top in triumph, and immediately lead the party, as he announced, into gaining new voters. Now he will have to make an effort to guard the party membership itself, so that he will have somebody to prepare with for post - Tudjman period.

If health conditions goes in favor of President Tudjman, Budisa will still need the support of the opposition electoral body to enter the Sabor, but it is a question could he, after all, count on sympathies of the part of the opposition public, while at this moment he is holding a distance towards the HDZ only that, for the time being, he is not in a coalition with it on a state level ?

Due exactly to this, a great blow to Budisa?s opposition credibility is the departure of the renowned Liberals, such as Gotovac, Kramaric and Vilfan, as well as a part of the opposition electoral base. On the other hand, Gotovac could be lead into the ranks of politically successful only by a victorious result in competition with Budisa, even though the number of votes he received was above expectations.

So, the success of the new Gotovac party will not depend in the first place on his engagement and convincing presentation, but on the political horoscope of Zlatko Kramaric., actually the only political victor of the 7th HSLS Congress. At the last convention, Kramaric won the least votes of all four vice presidents , while he surprised everybody at this one, winning not only more votes than all presidential candidates, but also more than Vlado Gotovac himself (621:573).