COALITION IN LABIN Zoran Milanovic and Radimir Cacic met in Labin on 14 March to discuss coalition; there is no decision as of yet on whether to invite the HSLS to joinThis Sunday in Labin the SDP, HNS and IDS launched preparations for a joint appearance at the coming elections for Parliament, regardless of whether they will be held as early as this autumn or at a later date. A deal has been made on economic and foreign policy, decentralisation and welfare measures, while negotiations of the chief issue - how many people each party will get to put on joint election slates - is scheduled for May and June, a top Croatian Social Democratic Party official told Nacional.

That means that preparations for lobbying on the distribution of the 140 places on the slates for the next Croatian Parliament have started. Advocates of a joint appearance by the opposition are convinced that the SDP, HNS, IDS and possibly also the Croatian Pensioner's Party (HSU), could win 60 percent of the seats in Parliament, which would secure a stable government and the possibility of carrying out a reform of the public sector and of the economy.

The Croatian People's Party (HNS) and the Istrian Democratic Assembly (IDS) are pushing for a speedy signing of a pre-election coalition, while, until recently, the predominant sentiment in the Social Democratic party (SDP) was that there was no need to rush things. There has now, however, been a change of heart among the social democrats and after the meeting in Labin the leading opposition party is also saying that the time has come for a formal signing of a pre-election coalition, just as the presidents of the SDP and HSLS, Ivica Racan and Drazen Budisa respectively, did in 1998.

The opposition has accused Government of trying to con the citizens into believing that early elections would cut short the negotiations with the European Union. Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor recently reiterated this idea, but the leaderships of leftist and liberal parties say that this is not the case and that it proves that the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) fears early elections. Now Zoran Milanovic has the lead role, and he needs to get things going on outlining the opposition's joint appearance, and consent to some compromises.

A source from the SDP leadership has told Nacional that most of the potentially contentious issues have already been resolved at the three previous meetings of the opposition and that what was now needed was a finalised version of a pre-election agreement. As far as election slates are concerned, a deal can be reached on the number of places that would be allotted to each party, but the actual names of the candidates will anyways only be decided when Government calls the elections. The only dilemma pertains to the question of whether the Croatian Social-Liberal Party (HSLS) should be invited to join this left wing-liberal bloc. Darinko Kosor and Durda Adlesic are allegedly inclined to leave the current ruling coalition, but two HSLS MP's continue to back the HDZ-led Government. Milanovic is of a mind to get the liberals on board the coalition, but the HNS is firmly set against the idea saying that, "unlike the HSU, which wins about five percent of the vote in some areas, the HSLS does not get anything anywhere, and shares the responsibility for Government's catastrophic economic policy."

It has, in fact, been from the HNS that the greatest pressure has come these past weeks to sign a formal pre-election agreement, regardless of whether there will be early elections or not. The party plans to table an economic strategy that would be one of the pillars of a leftist-liberal administration. The ten-page document accuses Government of racking up a high budget deficit and taking on more debt, caving in to the tens of thousands employed in the public sector and civil service, bogus war vets, the Diaspora and the Church bureaucracy. And besides, there will finally have to be a restructuring of agriculture, shipbuilding and the energy sector. There is little doubt that a reduction of the acquired rights enjoyed by these social groups would lead to resistance and that is why the HNS document states that a future government will have to be prepared for massive public protests. Parallel to this there should be an effort to reach a deal with unions, a freeze on employment in the civil service and another very important measure - to reduce capacities in shipbuilding by 40 percent.

In 2009 the HNS kicked around the idea of creating what was dubbed a "third bloc", that would include the Independent Democratic Serbian party (SDSS) and the IDS, with former President Stipe Mesic to have taken a major role in gathering the parties of the political centre. Speculation on a new political alliance were quite softened by the SDP, which now accepts most of the demands coming out of the HNS. As Nacional's source points out, the HNS would be satisfied if Milanovic secured top posts in a future government for Cacic and Vesna Pusic, while they expect some 15 of their members on the slates to fill seats in Parliament. A month ago Nacional published a draft SDP economic platform, penned for the most part by Branko Grcic, an MP and the dean of the School of Economics in Split. Grcic's document repositions the SDP from the political left to a liberal centre, and that is an economic strategy similar to the one being pushed by Cacic. That means that there are no longer any major differences between the SDP and HNS on their economic policy. IDS president Ivan Jakovcic recently stated that the time was coming when the mutual relations of the members of the coalition will have to be established. Jakovcic also said that the IDS expects to have its people on slates not only in Istria County and Promorje-Gorski Kotar County, the 8th riding, but also in other electoral districts.

At the Zagreb headquarters of the HNS and SDP the feeling is that there will not be problems with the IDS, because Jakovcic's party has no other option than to join the coalition. An important test of the homogeneity of the ruling coalition could be the vote on a rebalance of the budget in April or May. The opposition is counting on the SDSS and some minority Members of Parliament, and Branimir Glavas' Croatian Democratic Union of Slavonia & Baranja (HDSSB) could vote against, and it is an open question how the HSLS will vote, which would mean that the budget rebalance would be backed by fewer than 77 deputies. If this is in fact how things pan out in the end, it would mean that the HDZ-led Government could no longer count on a majority in Parliament for the first time since the 2003 elections (when Ivo Sanader came to power). Something similar happened during the vote on the 2009 budget rebalance, but the HDZ on that occasion succeeded in gathering 79 MPs to back Government. Budget revenues were cut from 124 billion to 116 billion that time, and some ethnic minority MPs, regardless of being a party to the ruling coalition, did not support the budget rebalance. 79 Members of Parliament voted in favour of the amended budget, 59 voted against, with two abstentions (HSS MP Stipe Gabric Jambo and the MP for the Czech ethnic minority Zdenka Cuhnil).

Prior to the vote Milorad Pupovac said that the SDSS would not support the amendments to the budget because, even though it participates in Government and the parliamentary majority, it was not invited to take part in drafting the rebalance. And while the predominant feeling in the opposition is that the decision of the budget rebalance will not bring down the Jadranka Kosor administration, it will try everything to separate the HDZ and the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) from the remaining MPs that support them. First in line are the Members of Parliament representing the ethnic minorities, which is why the SDP-HNS-IDS trio supports the idea based on which ethnic minority voters (except those of the Serbian minority who make up over 1.5 percent of the population) would get double voting rights. They have also announced a more intense communication with Darinko Kosor, in the process of which Milanovic has to tread carefully lest he offend the HNS, while the leadership of the SDSS has been unhappy with its position in executive government for some time now.

A rumour was recently circulated among high-level political circles that SDSS Deputy Prime Minister Slobodan Uzelac did not come to his government offices for several weeks, even though he was not sick. If the SDSS decides to leave the governing coalition the opposition is ready to bring that party on board the pre-election coalition. But in the current state of affairs the SDP, HNS and IDS have launched the drafting of an election campaign program that should secure victory at the elections for Parliament on their own.