Dokument #2038000
Freedom House (Autor)
Democracy Percentage | 54.17 / 100 |
Democracy Score | 4.25 / 7 |
By Tena Prelec
In 2019, Croatia’s democracy continued its long period of stagnation—in fact, the country could be viewed as sleepwalking through a slow, sometimes imperceptible, yet steady decline in democratic governance.
Politically, the year was characterized by intense infighting within the main political parties. On the left, the so-far unsuccessful experience of new party formations has allowed the Social Democratic Party (SDP) to reconsolidate after numerous defections and a few years of radically declining ratings. Especially significant in 2019, however, was the internecine fight that took place within the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), the country’s main conservative, and ruling, party.
The HDZ has long been a “big tent” party uniting more moderate right-wingers and a powerful hard-right section. The glue of the party is provided by entrenched patronage and clientelism, made possible by the HDZ’s extended period of rule in Croatia (21 of the country’s 27-year history).1 In this sense, the corruption scandals that regularly hit Croatian politicians—and usually HDZ members more than others, as was the case in 2019—are to be seen as a continuation of a well-rehearsed machinery that not even European Union accession (Croatia became an EU member state in 2013) and the jailing of a former prime minister for grand corruption (Ivo Sanader in 2012) have managed to eradicate.
The European Parliament elections held in May 2019 were considered largely free and fair, in spite of an assessment by the electoral commission that abuse of public resources by the controversial Zagreb mayor Milan Bandić (running with his Bandić Milan 365–Labor and Solidarity Party, or BM 365) had amounted to an infringement of law—the first such official statement at the national level. The election results returned four seats each to the two mainstream parties, SDP and HDZ, but this was seen as a bad result for the HDZ, which had hoped to capture as many as six seats. The realization that HDZ had lost votes to smaller parties further to the right likely forced the government to keep several HDZ far-right backers in the cabinet with the July 2019 reshuffle. However, HDZ’s more moderate wing managed to keep the hard-liners at bay, retaining control of the party.
The leading representative of this “moderate wing”—the man at the helm of Croatia’s government, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković—has held his position since October 2016. The events of 2019 should be viewed in the context of this slightly longer period, which has seen moments of crisis, from the fall of Croatia’s largest company, Agrokor, in 2018 (the most significant political-economic event of the decade) to the teachers’ strike in late 2019. At these and other critical junctures, Plenković, a former diplomat and member of the European Parliament, went well beyond his previous image as a polished Brussels “Eurocrat.” In mercilessly disposing of coalition partners and weathering scandals that would have sunk less capable politicians, he showed leadership (as well as ruthlessness).
The same resolve and callousness were applied on more than one occasion in 2019. Among the PM’s most concerning tendencies was his attempt to curtail the independent Commission for Conflict of Interest, even as the body scrutinized his role in resolving the Agrokor affair, as well as his appointment of a close personal friend as ambassador to the United Kingdom. Although successfully challenging the far-right wing of his party by supporting the United Nation’s Istanbul Convention on violence against women (ratified in the Sabor, Croatia’s unicameral parliament, in 2018), Plenković could not be described as a human rights champion in 2019. He withheld concessions to teachers striking for better working conditions, and remained conspicuously silent on the thorny issues of media and judicial independence, migrants’ rights, and the shrinking space for civil society.
Particularly dire is the state of Croatia’s public broadcaster, HRT, whose deep politicization became even more entrenched during the year. Croatia is now the only EU member state where the public broadcaster has sued its own employees,2 a sweeping assault carried out in 2019 by the highest public authorities in an atmosphere of “oppressive silence.”3 On this move, both PM Plenković and President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović issued statements that ranged from downplaying the problem to the outright undermining of media independence.
The civic sector was also under attack during the year as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) attempted to hold Croatian politicians accountable, such as smears accusing GONG (Citizens Organized to Monitor Voting) of “working against the Croatian candidate” for merely posing open questions to Dubravka Šuica during her European Commission campaign. As a result, the overall impression of civil society and media workers is that “the restriction of freedoms is now done in velvet gloves, but it is as insidious [as earlier] and in fact it has gotten worse.”4 In this picture, the tenacious publication of hard-hitting journalistic investigations by a handful of intrepid media outlets, unearthing one corruption scandal after another, is a testament to their professionalism and resilience in the face of hardship.
Actions by law enforcement also pointed to an atmosphere of heightened alertness and restricted civil liberties. Police arrested a man holding a sign that read “ćaća” (a reference to disgraced former prime minister Ivo Sanader) while standing in a crowd greeting PM Plenković’s arrival on the island of Korčula.5 In Pula, individuals were served with an arrest warrant because they wore T-shirts with the slogan “HDZ—thieves.”6 Even more worrisome, police have made headlines in connection with the migrant crisis as human rights groups have repeatedly expressed concerns over the use of violent force to push back migrants at the Croatian-Serbian and Croatian-Bosnian borders.7 The arbitrary deportation of two Nigerian table tennis players to Bosnia was harshly criticized throughout Europe for its underlying racism.8 Again, Croatian leaders were largely silent on such mistreatment.
The first round of the presidential elections held in December saw a tripartite race: the HDZ incumbent, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović; Social Democrat Zoran Milanović; and a folk singer running on a hard-right platform, Miroslav Škoro. SDP’s Milanović came out on top, subsequently winning the January 5, 2020, runoff and thus setting a scene in which both the head of state (Milanović) and head of government (Plenković) represent the most centrist option within their respective parties. Public friction between the two is a forgone conclusion, but the question on everyone’s mind is whether they will find an understanding behind the scenes, beyond the media posturing.
Looking ahead, there were indications of positive opportunities. Preparations for Croatia to host the Presidency of the EU Council in 2020 for the first time seemed to be going well. European Commission officials in Brussels expressed satisfaction with the Croatian team’s level of preparedness, saying that it exceeded their experiences with previous presidencies. The capacity of Croatia’s representation in Brussels has increased, while the Zagreb summit in May 2020 was expected to provide the venue for the agreement on a new methodology for EU enlargement. And the year 2020 is set to be an important one for the city of Rijeka, as holder of the title of European Capital of Culture.
As for domestic politics, the main race to watch is the parliamentary elections in the second half of 2020. Despite the HDZ’s apparent setbacks in 2019, the party is known for its ability to mobilize its electorate and is positioned to maintain its dominance. This does not preclude some changes on the horizon, however. One of the most consequential issues in the coming period is likely to revolve around the slightly off-center éminence grise of Croatian politics—Milan Bandić. With the many accusations of clientelism and corruption, the six-term mayor of Zagreb embodies what is most despised by much of the Croatian public. Bandić has maneuvered himself to be politically indispensable to the ruling HDZ, but in 2019, his game was increasingly laid bare by fiery opposition members in the Zagreb city assembly. Filmmaker Dario Juričan helped put Bandić under the national spotlight by spoofing his candidacy during the December presidential election, with anti-Bandić protests ensuing in the capital. Bandić’s fall from popularity may signal that politics as usual is no longer welcome in Croatia.
Considers the democratic character of the governmental system; and the independence, effectiveness, and accountability of the legislative and executive branches. | 4.25 / 7.00 |
Examines national executive and legislative elections, the electoral framework, the functioning of multiparty systems, and popular participation in the political process. | 5.00 / 7.00 |
Assesses the organizational capacity and financial sustainability of the civic sector; the legal and political environment in which it operates; the functioning of trade unions; interest group participation in the policy process; and the threat posed by antidemocratic extremist groups. | 5.25 / 7.00 |
Examines the current state of press freedom, including libel laws, harassment of journalists, and editorial independence; the operation of a financially viable and independent private press; and the functioning of the public media. | 3.75 / 7.00 |
Considers the decentralization of power; the responsibilities, election, and capacity of local governmental bodies; and the transparency and accountability of local authorities. | 4.25 / 7.00 |
Assesses constitutional and human rights protections, judicial independence, the status of ethnic minority rights, guarantees of equality before the law, treatment of suspects and prisoners, and compliance with judicial decisions. | 3.50 / 7.00 |
Looks at public perceptions of corruption, the business interests of top policymakers, laws on financial disclosure and conflict of interest, and the efficacy of anticorruption initiatives. | 3.75 / 7.00 |
Author: Tena Prelec, Research Fellow, Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR), University of Oxford.
The ratings reflect the consensus of Freedom House, its academic advisers, and the author(s) of this report. The opinions expressed in this report are those of the author(s). The ratings are based on a scale of 1 to 7, with 7 representing the highest level of democratic progress and 1 the lowest. The Democracy Score is an average of ratings for the categories tracked in a given year. The Democracy Percentage, introduced in 2020, is a translation of the Democracy Score to the 0–100 scale, where 0 equals least democratic and 100 equals most democratic.