He was sentenced, and she was rejected. They differ in many ways, and they are connected by at least one common characteristic. Understanding of the mechanisms of ruling and the desire for political power. He was a president, and she, in a very different time, was the vice president of the Croatian government. Both are still being questioned for abuse of state powers and financial misconduct.
Dr Ivo Sanader has been tried for several years already, and Martina Dalić was firstly politically removed and then reported to the state prosecution. Later, they both explained the reasons for their political exile.
Sanader had to leave because he allegedly did not agree with the demands for trading on Croatian territory and did not want to withdraw under European pressure on the determination of the sea border with Slovenia.
Dalić said that they morally humiliated and sentenced her because she refused the request of the then owner of the Agrokor group, Ivica Todorić, for the state to loan him, that is, to donate three hundred million euros. It was allegedly a complete turning point in, until then, not written but constantly actual relations between the ruling policy and the owner of the group. Or, as illustrated by one of the researchers of such cooperation, it is hard to find a company in the world employing the former governor of the national bank, the finance ministers and the public administration ministers, their deputies, the deputy minister of economy, the head of state unions, the director of national television, the husband of the chief of the agency for the protection of market competition, and even the wife of the deputy prime minister and a whole series of other people related to government. The Agrokor group has always been, and also because of the silent powers provided to it by the current government, the parallel government in the country.
They both wrote a book. First, Sanader released last year the first, and this year the second part of the promised trilogy. Dalić has just recently promoted her book on the collapse of capitalism in a “godfather” manner. If Sanader compares himself with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Dalić also estimates herself highly, as some lonely rider saving the state from the problems. She wrote that she was only guilty of the unusual passion with which she was working on to solve the “Agrokor” problem that could jeopardize Croatia and in this way showed that the Croatian government could act differently. Very similar to her message of September 2014, when she left the ruling party membership and noted that it was necessary to make a breakthrough from established political patterns.
However, the search for the real reason for their political departure in the allegations of the maritime border with Slovenia and Ivica Todorić would still very mislead us. Neither prime minister Sanader resigned and left for Slovenia, nor did they give up Davić due to the fall of Agrokor.
Both were forced to leave because of the excessive political power, because, after Franjo Tuđman, they were the only ones who were able to combine the formal and informal power of governing in non-appellate political power.
When taking power in 2000, Sanader was able to improve relations with citizens of the Croatia of Serbian nationality, to start a new co-operation with Karla del Ponte, the chief prosecutor of the international war crimes tribunal in the former Yugoslavia, to open new forms of negotiations on Croatia’s EU membership, as well as to relatively peacefully remove the related connection of the former government and organized crime.
On May 4, 1998, president Tuđman received the head of his office, Dr. Hrvoje Šarinić. They talked about the biggest owner of Croatian companies, Miroslav Kutle. Šarinić warned the president of the gangster system within which Kutle and some of the Tuđman’s most trusted associates already controled Croatia, state media, political parties and secret services. Šarinić resigned a day later. Tuđman simply did not want to believe that the power of the elected political institutions with the power of the state underground was united in his office. He was convinced that it was a rumour placed by all those who want to reintroduce Croatia into Yugoslavia. That is part of the EU and European Commission policy, he said the same day to the minister of foreign affairs, Dr Mate Granić. He went on to say that it is more important for him to have invitations of patriots telling him to give up the policy of kneeling before Europe, to cancel the application for membership in the EU, in the name of the people, because the only question is to preserve the Croatian independence and democracy that others do not have. He added that it is not the goal to have Croatia’s membership in the European Union that is regenerating the Western Balkans. It is precisely this intention that is the source of rumours about a gangster state, aimed at destroying the ruling party and the system. The kind the state has.
The Croatian underground in the 1990s was ruled by two persons, Mladen Naletilić-Tuta and Zlatko Bagarić. Both acknowledged only one above themselves. The defence minister Gojko Sušak. Together with some of Tuđman’s advisors, they regulated things in the country.
Then del Ponte announced an indictment for Tuta. He knew too much about the plans for the Croatian occupation of part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Tuđman’s son, the chief of secret services, began to search for him to arrest him. Minister Sušak was then dying from lung cancer. Bagarić wanted to take over the entire underground, so they killed him.
Sanader won the elections for Tuđman’s successor, removed his rivals, and immediately assumed all power. No decision could be made without him. So many years later, when problems began, the defeated felt he was vulnerable. They began to control the great president who enabled the country to become a member of the EU. Then he escaped from the country and was arrested in Austria.
Vice president Dalić made a similar mistake. In order to save Agrokor, she organized and led a special group of advisers, gave them governmental authority and opened access to the most trusted state documents. She set up a parallel government and informed partially the prime minister Plenković, about it. She had to leave because of the fear she could become too strong.
Borut Šuklje 