The shortest report on HDZ in the Parliamentary 1st election unit, held on Sunday at Zagreb fair, proved several facts: The Hague tribunal, indicatively, was not mentioned; the main hit of the pre-election campaign is directed at Ivica Račan, the Premier and president of SDP; comments on HDZ’s founder and creator Franjo Tuđman received many kind words and sincere applause. The gathered mass only rose to their feet twice in the three and one half hours that the convention lasted. The first time was when Vladimir Šeks, in the role of a collective psychotherapist, insulted the Minister of Environmental Protection, Ivo Banac, describing him as Dr. Frankenstein. The second was when rocker Dino Dvornik sang the song for HDZ’s election slogan called “Pokrenimo Hrvatsku”.

the song 'Pokrenimo Hrvatsku' by Dino Dvornik pleased the audience more than Sanader's speechThe political humor of Andrije Hebranga brought less success. He based it on the cliché on the “red wolf” as being SDP members hiding themselves as reformed communists. A weaker interpretation of his critical metaphor is that the middle aged portion of HDZ’s public is made up of former members of the Communist Alliance and they cannot laugh at this type of allusion whole heartedly.

That is why the massive cheers with Dvornik’s refrain is most likely the largest surprise at HDZ’s Sunday gathering at the fair’s center and Globus restaurant. Influential members of the party have, until now, preferred to chant Tuđman’s name and statements in honor of the homeland and God. Because the Sunday convention for Zagreb’s HDZ was planned as a party celebration- including both politics and Estrada relaxation- even tradition was not ignored. Along side Dvornik, Vanna, Dražen Žanko and one cultural-artistic society in national dress entertained the crowd but with a much weaker response from HDZ’s public.

If HDZ was once formed by a heterogonous group of a political fraction, it is clearly seen today that they are putting effort into creating a consensus between two generations: the Tuđman generation and the post-Tuđman, on which we are counting.

The Parliamentary 1st election branch of HDZ began at noon. For the needs of the participants, Globus opened the main congress hall and the neighboring space. Because the Parliament had a hallmark pre-election meeting, many members from other cities joined Zagreb’s HDZ. There were hugs and kisses, and toasts at Globus’s bar in honor of the former popular times. Apparently Jadranka Kosor, the president of HDZ’s Zagreb organization and host, did not expect such a massive arrival so a large number of people had to spend three and one half hours on their feet in Globus’s hall, straining their hearing towards the monitor to hear what the speaker was saying. It seems, however, that HDZ’s beginning of the pre-election campaign was in such a small space for two reasons. First: the call for a new election was not yet officially confirmed. And two: in the past four years of its opposition, HDZ has clearly realized that money does not grow on trees and that Globus was the perfect solution for the party budget. Further, nothing was free this time; drinks were paid for at the commercial price for companies.

For those that followed similar HDZ gatherings in the 90’s, there was a supreme example of transformation in the population of the party in our society. The changes were especially interesting because the HDZ system has not yet radically changed. In the working headquarters of Zagreb’s Parliament and in the public, there were a large number of members from the triumphant period of HDZ from 1990: Vladimir Šeks, Ivan Bobetko, Đuro Perica, Gordana Turić, Neven Jurica, Hrvoje Šošić, Luka Bebić, and Stjepan Spajić… There were many frustrated leaders from the former HDZ’s government system which was changed and cut after the election defeat in 2000: from Ivan Penić, the former Minister of Internal Affairs, to Tomislav Mičić, a returned emigrant that achieved an officer title during HDZ’s period. Handing out their own pre-election critiques for the current coalition government, they complained to Nacional’s reporter about the poor pensions that were handed out to the Ministry of Defense.

The largest part of the party population were the masses from Zagreb’s suburbs whose face the public has never met, but who have been faithful followers of all politics by HDZ’s leaders. In the discussions before the beginning of the official part of the program, the opinion of good works in the quiet masses was most well described by a well known HDZ member: “Intimately, I am probably close to Ivić Pašalić. But he did not become the president of HDZ and I will never accept him because of that. While Sanader is the president, I will follow his politics.”

That is how the idea was seen that the new mark of the Zagreb convention gave into a quiet alliance with Ivo Sanader and the party’s rising new generation. In Tuđman’s period the youth of HDZ was a part of the rural youth subculture that spoke of Tuđman, declaring him a European, which was not said in public. This time the rising generation in HDZ is made up of young women who irresistibly associated their appearance with the golden years of the Socialist Youth Alliance at the end of the 1980’s. The critiques on the current government followed a classical generation pattern: it reminded society of their anger on the drastic rise in tuition and unrealized promises on employing youth and highly educated individuals. The key message to the women contained something different: HDZ will beat all the social-political disasters only under the leadership of Ivo Sanader. The speech by the head secretary Branko Vukelić finished similarly. According to other speakers who did not follow their example, the impression was that despite the quiet masses- which was immediately seen as different than it used to be- there exists a circle of young individuals that see the guarantee of HDZ’s future in only one person: Sanader, the first post- Tuđman president for HDZ who has been established as a charismatic leader.

At the Parliamentary 1st election branch for HDZ, Sanader alone, at least until now, has shown at least respectable leadership ambitions towards his political followers. He has acted as the previous: he spoke without any written points, concentrated and smooth. Even though his every word was listened to patiently, his elaboration on political failures of the leading coalition was in fact too long, without surprises or new ideas. He did not manage to entertain the public. Based on his sweaty face, his one hour appearance tired him out as well.

He selected, mainly, all of the government’s failures that the newspapers have been placing on their headlines over the past several months: he commented on the Premier’s wife who because an employee at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who left her position just before the election; warning on the “conspiracy” behind the recent tender for the second fixed telephone line; he made fun of the Law on the conflict of interest, got angry on the Croatian-Slovenian negotiations on the border, claiming that the economic situation is worse than in the time of HDZ’s regime… “Mato Crkvenac is not respectable enough to be the novice to our Borislav Škegra”, he yelled at a time of inspiration. He admitted to HDZ’s arrogance and errors in the privatization theory and practice, but praised that the leading coalition brought about the Declaration on the Patriotic War because of HDZ’s pressure.

Vesna Pusić is the loudest opposer to that Parliamentary document but he skipped listing the political sinners from the current government. He kept quiet on the most radical HDZ opponent to Stipe Mesić, the President of the Republic. He only commented on HSS’s Zlatko Tomčić, accusing him of being to blame for the agricultural disaster. “In these elections we will win over at least 35% of votes”, said Sanader’s critical portion of his speech, sending party colleagues the message that they should place their entire capacity on SDP.

A smaller, but not insignificant portion, was dedicated to inter-party opportunities. As if he was apologizing, he announced that during the past four years, HDZ has cleaned up their own problems, showing voters that the government can be cleaned up in the same way. Very different from Šeks and Hebranga’s humoristic allusions, Sanader very seriously alluded to Ivić Pašalić. Pašalić left HDZ and created his own party but Sanader, it seems, knows how delicate his situation is: to preside over Pašalić’s radicalism, the unconscious social surroundings have changed over the past four years. That is why it is clear that the topics of the pre-election Parliamentary 1st election branch were not The Hague, or the fleeing Ante Gotovina. Either HDZ’s elite does not have any problems with Ivica Račan, or they estimated that voters are not interested in that anymore.