“The HDZ politics are out of date and in need of change. That is why we went with the program of Slavonia as a region. Were we to go ahead with the old HDZ program, the party would have won only 25% of the vote in the Osijek-Baranja County, which is little,” was the comment made on Sunday afternoon for Nacional by Branimir Glavaš, the former HDZer who found himself front and centre on the political stage after HDZ president and Premier Ivo Sanader cast him out of the party. That event took place last week after months of squabbles between Glavaš and Sanader, which culminated when Branimir Glavaš, only two days before the deadline for submitted ballot lists for the local elections, announced that he was establishing a citizen’s association called Croatian Democratic Assembly of Slavonia and Baranja (HDSSB) with whom he would run in the elections. He emphasized that the association would support the idea of Slavonia as a region with the desire for the whole of Croatia to be regionalized in place of the current division into counties.

"I knew back in 2000 that Sanader was not a man of vision who could lead this party but, between him and Ivić Pašalić, I selected the lesser of two evils" On Sunday morning in Osijek, the initial meeting of that association was to be held in the building of the County Chamber of Commerce however, after their initial consent, president of the CoC Zoran Kovačević refused to provide them with the space. Interesting, that same man is on the list of members of the initial committee of HDSSV, while his brother Dragan Kovačević is a member of HDZ and the State Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and submitted the HDZ ballot list in Osijek.

“Zoran Kovačević was under serious pressure by Nadan Vidošević, president of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, who ordered that he was not to allow the space to be used under threat of losing his job,” Glavaš told us with a snicker, remarking that Zoran Kovačević was to blame. However, Glavaš took advantage of the closed doors of the County Chamber of Commerce to put on a little show of his own. At first he tried theatrically to open the doors, after which he gathered together his associates and the press and read before them a letter of protest stating that he regretted the fact that it was impermissible to even discuss the ideal of the regionalization of Slavonia.

The conflict between Glavaš and Sanader began at the end of last year when Glavaš realized that he and HDZ would not fare well in the local elections in the Osijek-Baranja County and that they needed to offer something new to the voters. At that time, he requested an additional 280 million kuna from the state budget for Slavonia for this year, which the party leadership and the government rejected. “For months we went from Ministry to Ministry, seeking money for specific projects, receiving promises but in the end we did not receive a single kuna. Ivo Sanader came to the meeting of the HDZ club and said, ‘There will be no discussions on the budget.’ He did not say that in the parliament or the government, he said that in his party club. What kind of methods are those? We are not puppets on strings,” explained Glavaš in our casual conversation in the foyer of Hotel Osijek. At that time he almost lost his nerve and he went for a meeting with Sanader, which left him feeling calm. “They promised me that I would receive the funds with the rebalancing of the budget. And that rebalance has been scheduled for September. When did anyone ever receive money after a rebalance? Rebalances serve to reduce costs, not to increase them,” angrily explained Glavaš.

The events surrounding the parliamentary Commission which investigated the bankruptcy of the Viktor Lenac shipyard also contributed to the development of the poor relations. Glavaš did not agree with the Commission conclusions and he insulted his party colleague Florijan Boras. However, it was quickly heard that the Commission had discovered that alongside Damir Vrhovnik, the role of Ivica Račan in the bankruptcy of Viktor Lenac was much greater than presented in public. Glavaš suspected that Ivo Sanader was not suited by an attack against Ivica Račan, particularly due to the common stance of HDZ and SDP on EU integration.

“From the very start it seemed as though Sanader and Šeks were not in the least interested in the Commission conclusions due to their cooperation with certain parties. I was particularly involved in that investigation. I am not an expert in shipbuilding, but I hired advisors who know the shipbuilding business. They explained everything to me, I prepared a large pile of papers and in the end the Commission came up with a conclusion that I refused to support. I am very interested to see how they plan to defend that conclusion at the parliamentary session,” Glavaš told us.

At that point, he and Sanader entered into constant conflict, one of the largest was the one surrounding the postponement of EU accession talks. Glavaš then announced that the Ante Gotovina case was not the key reason for the postponement because, ‘if it weren’t for Gotovina, the EU would have found some other reason’. The statement was shocking, particularly considering the fact that HDZ and Sanader did all they could to attempt to receive the date for talks as scheduled. “At the meeting of the HDZ Executive Board, Sanader told us that what I said about Gotovina and the EU was true, but that he could not say that publicly,” Glavaš told us, obviously wanting to prove that Sanader has been playing both sides the whole time.

During our conversation, Glavaš wanted to explain that his greatest concern is Slavonia, that unemployment in that part of Croatia is at 33% and that the politicians from that region should be paying more attention to these problems and not running to Zagreb for their political careers, emphasizing that he had never done that. However, when we mentioned that in 2000 he also sought political success in Zagreb when he ran for president of HDZ, he told us that he did not do so out of personal promotion. “Those were crazy times and we needed to stop Ivić Pašalić from taking control over the party. I ran for party president only to prevent Ljerka Mintas-Hodak from winning on behalf of Ivić Pašalić,” explained Glavaš. At that time, Sanader was elected and the Ivić Pašalić was finally cast out of the party two years later, in which Glavaš played a great role in organizing the party assembly. “I supported Ivo Sanader then, but that was support for the lesser of two evils. I knew that Sanader was not a man of vision who could lead this party but, I repeat, I selected the lesser of two evils,” Glavaš responded, denying the claims that he deals with Slavonia only because he was limited and prevented from achieving greater success at the state level.

In explaining why he would like to see Slavonia as a region, Glavaš claimed that the first plans for this were drafted in 2000, “and now that plan has been presented with a few corrections”. When asked whether he had in the meantime informed Sanader of the creation of that plan, he responded “No, why should I? The party president should permit the party leaders to run their policies at the local level.” Glavaš admitted that in revealing the plan of turning Slavonia into a region, that he wanted to shake up the voting body which, according to opinion polls, did not give him and HDZ the support to win a majority in Osijek and the county. “We have already printed two types of election posters. One reads ‘Slavonia, a Croatian region’ and the other reads, ‘Osijek – capital of the Slavonia region’, while the HDZ logo is at the bottom. Now we will throw away all 40 thousands printed posters and put the HDSSB logo in place of the HDZ logo, and they will be put up on Monday,” Glavaš stated, adding that Europe is in support of regions and Ivo Sanader, as a European, should support the idea. Nor did he receive any support from his close friend Vladimir Šeks, also from Slavonia. “He is my former friend and I wish him all the best in his future life and career,” Glavaš responded.

When the rift between Sanader and Glavaš became too great to overcome, those who had supported Glavaš began losing their jobs. Mate Radeljić is no longer spokesman for the Defense Ministry and Vlado Tuličić, member of the HDSSB initiation board, is no longer Chief of Police in Osijek-Baranja County. Upon mention of Tuličić, Glavaš began to laugh claiming that Tuličić was posted by Sime Lučin and HDZ did not remove him upon taking power, but have decided to do so now due to his support for Glavaš. Glavaš claims that he does not fear these pressures and media pressures against him, nor does he agree with the claims that he will disappear from political life like Ivić Pašalić because he is nothing and no one without HDZ.

“I am well aware of the media attacks against me, like those by Davor Butković in Jutarnji List. However, Ivo Sanader has been holding Butković on a ‘line’ this whole time and as such, I would be worried if Butković began to write positively about me,” commented Glavaš sarcastically. He added that in Tudjman’s time, which many HDZers call a terrible period, President Tudjman confronted his opponents in a different fashion, as Branimir Glavaš experienced in 1997. “President Tudjman would call that person in for a meeting, he would explain that he cannot do what he’s doing and he offered a transfer to a different position. Sanader, unlike Tudjman, does not permit conversation, but immediately casts you out of the party,” claimed Glavaš. It is clear that Glavaš’s fate will only be known at the end of the local elections in May, but for the time being, he is very self-confident. Repeating that unemployment is at 33% in Slavonia, he added that 95% of the HDZ voting body is dissatisfied with the changes in HDZ politics before and after the parliamentary elections, and according to Glavaš, the best indicator of that are the results of Jadranka Kosor in the presidential elections.

For Glavaš, it is most important that in establishing the citizen’s association HDSSB, he received the support of many intellectuals and university professors who are in the top ranks of the HDSSB ballot list, while his political opponents claim that these are people who own Glavaš a favour. Among the top ten on the list are Glavaš’s attorney Dražen Matijević and Davor Brunčić, secretary of the County Assembly where HDZ holds the majority. They all met on Sunday morning for the meeting of the initial committee of the citizen’s association HDSSB and found themselves before locked doors of the County Chamber of Commerce. However, Glavaš was very proud of the people who had gathered there. He claimed that there were about 300, though there were 120. What is certain is Glavaš’s claim that he will form a new MP club in the parliament. “Ivan Drmić, Vladimir Šišljagić and I, three men cast out of HDZ, will form our own MP club in the parliament on Monday and we will submit our request to receive office space in the parliament. We will also request the 750,000 kuna we are entitled to in order to finance our work,” announced Glavaš, reminding of one fact. “I was a parliamentary in all the mandates so far, even in the Lower House, something that not even Šeks has done. As such, I will not let any former theatre director tell me how to do my work.”