POLITICS-CROATIA: Constitutional Cleansing Pledged

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric-Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Feb 9 2000 (IPS) - Croatia’s newly elected president, Stjepan Mesic, has pledged to cleanse the country’s constitution of excessive presidential powers.

Mesic, better known by his nickname as “Stipe”, was elected President on Monday with 56,21 percent votes.

“Many of the presidential powers at my disposal will not exist anymore. They were used in an extensive, inflationary manner. I will cooperate with the government and the parliament and use only some of the powers previsioned by the constitution,” he said in his first address to the nation on Croatian Television (HRT) on Monday.

Should he honour his pledge, Mesic will bring to an end an era of presidential power abuse and usher in a more democratic government.

The late President Franjo Tudjman, father of the independent Croatia, ruled the country from 1990 to 1999 with almost unlimited powers.

Tudjman’s party, Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), who held the majority seats in parliament, pushed for a constitution that allowed the president free and unaccountable reign.

This included issues on national security, such as supporting war efforts of the Croats in neighbouring Bosnia, and foreign relations.

Tudjman ruled Croatia from 1990 when he was president of the Croatian Republic within the Yugoslav Federation. In 1991 when Croatia became independent, he remained president and was re- elected in 1995. He died on Dec 10, 1999.

Jadranko Crnic, former chairman of the Constitutional Court of Croatia, says broad presidential powers need to be abrogated in order to turn Croatia into a democratic country.

“Croatia needs to move in a more democratic direction. Everyone in every political party should accept the idea that there should never again be a president with as much power as he (Trudjman) had under the current constition. Everyone should agree that power should flow from Parliament,” says Crnic.

The coalition of six parties, headed by Mesic, who won a landslide victory over HDZ on Jan 3 have promised to change parts of the constitution on presidential powers and turn the country towards parliamentary rule.

Already the winds of change are visible. New interior minister, Sime Lucin, announced recently that all the files of the secret police will be made available to citizens upon request.

This, analysts say, was unimaginable a few months ago in a country which has at least nine secret and security services.

Lucin also reportedly ordered the immediate cessation of surveillance and tapping of phones of leading political activists in the country. A regular practice of Croatian police over the last decade.

New defence minister Jozo Rados has launched an investigation into the functions of the ministry over the past 10 years. The ministry is accused of providing generous military help to Croats in Bosnia since 1992.

Political analysts have described Mesic as being experienced, direct and down to earth

In 1990 he represented Croatia in the rotating presidency of the six-member former Yugoslav federation and for serval months, in 1991, was the president of the federation just before it fell apart.

Like many leaders of the new Croatia, Mesic spent some time in prison in the early 1970s due to his nationalism and came back into politics in the late 1980s, when a multiparty system was introduced in the former Yugoslavia.

As one of the founders of HDZ, he left the party in 1994 disappointed with its aggressive politics towards Bosnia. Mesic’s nationalism was never extreme. His wife is a Croatian Serb unlike Tudjman who reportedly used to comment on the fact that he was proud that his wife “was neither Serb nor Jewish”.

Addressing a press conference Monday Mesic said relations with its first neighbour, Yugoslavia would only improve if Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevico, stepped down from office.

Milosevic is viewed in Croatia as the main instigator of the wars that tore apart the former Yugoslav federation in 1991 and the key problem of Balkans.

“The Serbs have to go through a catharsis, but I am sure that we can have good relations in the future, like Germany and France succeeded in doing after the WW II. Milosevic and his regime are the problem of people in Serbia and people there have to solve it,” said Mesic.