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Racan Death Unlikely to Trigger Opposition Turmoil

01 05 2007  Few believe departure of much-loved leader will lead to civil war within ranks of Croatia’s Social Democrats.

By Drago Hedl in Osijek

The death of Ivica Racan, the Croatian opposition leader, will not cause turmoil within his party, the Social Democrats, SDP, nor will his departure have repercussions on expected autumn parliamentary elections, political analysts say.

Racan died in the Zagreb Clinical Centre in the night between Saturday and Sunday April 29. He had been receiving treatment for kidney cancer after doctors diagnosed a tumour in his shoulder in February, which had grown into a metastasis despite intervention.

Racan’s fatal illness and the stoic dignity with which he bore it appeared to have bolstered the ratings of his left-of-centre party.

Recent opinion polls suggest the Social Democrats have caught up with or even overtaken the ruling Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, led by Ivo Sanader.

Since resigning as SDP leader on April 11, the public domain has been rife with speculation concerning a possible split in the party, however.

Such rumours were fuelled by the decision of three of Racan’s associates to immediately announce their candidacy as the new Social Democrat leader.

These were the former foreign minister in Racan’s government, Tonino Picula, the economic expert Ljubo Jurcic, whom Racan had been promoting as a potential prime minister if the SDP were to win the next election, and Zoran Milinovic, a representative of the SDP younger wing.

Zagreb’s powerful mayor, Milan Bandic, has not yet put up his candidacy but the fact that he has won twice in elections in the capital is an important reference point, which this ambitious politician will surely exploit.

Political analyst Davor Gjenero said stories about friction and infighting in the party over successors were the typical folklore accompanying such situations.

“Racan created a party that will certainly muster enough strength to find a suitable replacement, so I’m not among those who think a crisis will set in after his departure,” said Gjenero.

Racan, 64, was the only Communist Party leader in Europe to return to power following the fall of communism in the late 1980s. He returned to office ten years after losing the first mult-iparty election in Croatia since the Second World War in 1990.

He had never been a hard-line communist. Moreover, his resolute resistance to the bullying tactics of Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia in January 1990, when he walked out of the 14th congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, was a gesture that Croats appreciated. Together with the Slovene communists he had made it clear he would not side with Milosevic’s aspirations to create a Greater Serbia.

Immediately after, Racan called the first multi-party general election in Croatia since the 1940s. Although he lost the poll to the right-wing Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, headed by Franjo Tudjman, Racan continued the work of patiently reforming his party in opposition, re-branding it as a modern, pro-European, social democratic party.

Returning to power in the January 2000 election - three weeks after former president Tudjman’s death - he pulled Croatia out of the international isolation into which Tudjman’s confrontational policies had left it. Many believe this was his biggest success during his second term of office.

Ines Saskor, a former TV Zagreb news editor and prominent journalist, knew Racan well. “As opposition leader during the Tudjman’s reign, he was constructive but some would say excessively subdued and soft,” she recalled.

“But his moral authority and significant informal power prevented the regime from descending into a vicious circle of violence of ‘no return’ both in the economic and political spheres and preserved the thin thread linking Croatia to Europe.

“At the same time, Croatia could have done better, given its democratic potential. The country is indebted to Racan for having preserved Croatia’s ties to Europe but he should have done more.”

As prime minister from 2000 to 2003, Racan presided over the landmark submission of Croatia’s application for membership of the European Union. The country has since made significant progress on that road and stands a realistic prospect of becoming an EU member within a few years. Both his political supporters and opponents give him credit for that.

“Racan made his mark in recent Croatian history,” said the Croatian president, Stipe Mesic, on hearing of his death. “In addition to his many duties as a politician and statesman, he will be remembered as a man who made democratic changes in Croatia possible as well as the prime minister who led the way for Croatia towards its European future.”

The incumbent prime minister, Ivo Sanader, a political opponent of Racan’s, also praised his role in laying the foundations for the country’s integration into the European Union.

“Despite our rivalry and political struggles we knew how to seek an understanding and overcome party differences when national interests were at stake,” he said.

“Thus, we jointly created an alliance for Europe because we knew the future of Croatia lay in the European Union and in… integration.”

Racan was one of the few politicians in Croatia whose image was not marred by scandals. He lived modestly and, after rejoining the opposition ranks in 2003 after his election defeat by Sanader, away from the public eye.

Respecting his last will, his funeral will take place only in the presence of family and close friends. Hence, the place and time of his burial has not been made public.

Drago Hedl is a regular Balkan Insight contributor. Balkan Insight is BIRN’s online publication.