Zlatko Hasanbegovic (left) and Bruna Esih (right). Photo: Facebook

Croatia’s victorious centre-right Croatian Democratic Union – whose leader has made much of his move to the centre ground – has nevertheless slipped a few combative right-wingers into the new parliament.

Although Andrej Plenkovic, the recently appointed HDZ president, has stressed his wish to move the party more towards the centre, the controversial former culture minister [who was a minister but not an MP] Zlatko Hasanbegovic, as well as the equally controversial historian, Bruna Esih, who is not actually a member of HDZ, have both entered parliament under the HDZ’s auspices.

Like Hasanbegovic, Esih is a historian. She is also president of “Croatian Stages of the Cross”, an NGO that organises annual commemorations of the Partisan massacre of fleeing Croatian fascists in 1945 at Bleiburg in Austria.

After President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic posthumously honoured a prominent anti-fascist fighter, Ljubomir Drndic, in late August, Esih tore into the honour on Facebook.

“Scientifically verified history and real dealing with the communist totalitarian legacy” would not give Drndic’s surviving daughter “the right to contaminate the Croatian public space with this [her father’s past]”, she wrote.

She was also involved in drafting a law on dealing with the communist past in the last government, which the media nicknamed the “lustration law”.

Another far-from-centrist HDZ member who has re-entered parliament is Stevo Culej. He notoriously said on Facebook that the ethnic Roma MP Veljko Kajtazi “lies like a Serbian Gypsy” and “lies and works on the behalf of Croat-haters”, and later failed to apologize.

Stevo Culej’s elections poster. Photo: Facebook

These candidates were not high up on the party’s lists in the various constituencies but entered parliament through the system of preferential voting. This enables voters to choose candidates directly, not depending on their position on the list.

The HDZ, which won 61 out of 151 seats in the recent elections, will likely once again form a new government with the centre-right MOST [Bridge] party and national minorities’ representatives.

Unlike the last government, no far-right parties, such as the Croatian Party of Rights “Ante Starcevic”, HSP AS, or Hrast [Oak] – Movement for Successful Croatia, will be part of the ruling coalition.

Political analyst Zarko Puhovski told BIRN that “nothing can change that quickly, as Plenkovic often says” – and especially not the HDZ’s old ideological fixations. “He [Plenkovic] has had to make compromises,” he noted.

“Although HDZ voters are like dough that can be kneeded, there are limits to this,” Puhovski added.

“What is important is that no one has any clue what Plenkovic actually represents since his tactic is not say anything in terms of content but only to say those things that could appeal to the biggest possible number of voters who are not leftists,” he observed.

His real position will be known only when and if he becomes Croatia’s next Prime Minister, he continued.

Although Esih entered parliament by winning over 10,000 preferential votes, Puhovski noted that she “was well covered in the campaign”, especially by supportive TV host Velimir Bujanec, a figure close to the HDZ and known for his hardline rhetoric.

“Esih is decent in the way she speaks, if what she says is a little less decent … unlike Culej. But he couldn’t remove Culej from the list,” Puhovski said.

One former far-rightist has re-entered parliament by quickly switching party. The former MP of the Croatian Party of Rights ‘Ante Starcevic’ HSP AS, Ivan Kirin, only joined the HDZ in August.

Puhovski concluded that Plenkovic had put up all these candidates to test the popular strength of the far-right vote – which subsequently showed that Hasanbegovic was not that popular – and also to show the hardline right-wing voters that the party “hasn’t given up on ideological debates”.