Ivo PukanićI have spent the greater part of my professional life in battle with Ivic Pasalic. I met him some ten years ago: an extremely intelligent, uncompromising, callous and very dangerous man. That was the halo effect of our first meeting. I believe the same of him today. As time passes, I become more certain that the most important thing which determined the continued development of Croatia in a positive direction was bringing down the underground, dark empire this man had created. Had he succeeded in holding onto power and had he become the president of HDZ, that would have been a catastrophe that Croatia would not pull out of easily. The person who would most benefit from Pasalic’s victory over Sanader would be Ivica Racan, as this would be sure to keep SDP in power for the next twenty years.

However, in the end, even Racan would find himself writhing in the cesspool Tudjman’s former advisor leaves everywhere he goes. Namely, if your rival plays dirty in the ring, you will also come out of the ring that way. The battle between Pasalic and I was literally a battle of life and death. He held virtually all the media under his power and the only one to give him a headache was Nacional. When he could not takeover Nacional with sweet talk, he tried by force, with the help of his comrade Kutle. This favourite HDZ tycoon used his gopher in my editorial offices to accomplish this. By his orders, this once great editor, and today just big, not to mention a big fat moral ruin, wanted to use the name Nacional and launch the “Daily Nacional” together with Kutle.

When I opposed any use of the name Nacional in their dirty games, then Kutle’s gopher turned against me, trying to remove me as editor-in-chief and have me thrown out of the company. In the end, I succeeded in forcing him and his associates out, even those who at that time had no idea who they were serving. Had I not then succeeded in wrestling against that attack, today there would be no Nacional. Of course, Kutle is behind this in name only. The real strings were pulled by “Doctor” Pasalic. A story from 2002 tells of how deep his desire ran to win me over onto his side. Thinking that Hrvoje Petrac had a great influence on me, he went searching for him throughout all of Europe (Petrac was then in his first exile). After some time, he found him and begged him to speak with me, to get me to back off my attacks so that he could become president of HDZ. In turn, he promised Petrac that once he was in power, he promised to help get him out of all his troubles with the State Prosecutor’s Office. After Petrac passed on Pasalic’s message to me, I began to hit even harder, right up until the HDZ Convention, where he lost.

I think that Ivo Sanader and I were among the rare people in Croatia who were certain that Pasalic would not win at that Convention. That was Pasalic’s second and greatest political debacle. The first was immediately after Tudjman’s death, when he did not become the acting HDZ president. The third debacle was when Sanader threw him out of the party. The fourth and perhaps the hardest blow was when he and his party experiences a true debacle at the 2003 elections. However, this is not his end. His end will be the day he ends up in prison. And not for politics. His unbelievable desire to get his hands on power will put him in jail. Which tactic has he chosen now? Considering that he failed in politics, he will try to get back into power in the next three to five years through business.

He will try to prove himself as a capable businessman, which he has already announced in the newspapers. Of course, in this period, considering that over ten years has already passed, he will attempt to legalize all the money he funnelled outside the country during his “golden years” from 1995 to 2000. He believes that this will pass unnoticed. Also, Pasalic believes that in that time, Sanader will be removed and he, as a wealthy and well known businessman with great political experience, will sit in his place. The revealing of his company AdriaHolz, “recapitalized with 22 million euro and direct ties of his name to the company Zagreb Drvo, owned by his brother, only shows that Pasalic has again lost his nerve. In the end, there is a Jewish saying that applies here: “It is difficult to have, then not have”. And there is another, even better, which is dedicated to the “doctor”: “It is terrible to have and not be able to flaunt”. He simply could not withstand the pressure of this saying.

email to:Ivo Pukanic