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This past weekend has witnessed several shakeups in the parliamentary elections across the eastern and central Europe. The voters in Slovenia, Russia, and particularly in Croatia, have expressed their frustration and anger at the polls. Croatia's long-time ruling party, Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), suffered perhaps its worst defeat since it first came into power in the early nineties. Only a miracle saved it from being completely humiliated and becoming de-facto irrelevant in political life.

To be honest, I haven't been following Croatian politics all that closely in years. The years of living abroad are certainly a major factor, but even more significant is my complete disillusion with the corruption and the venal nature of my homeland's politics. Political parties have become little more than patronage networks, operating both within and outside the legitimate channels. Sure, each party has a nice-sounding and elaborate party program, but they are little more than ideological talking points. The parties try to differentiate themselves along a variety of social issues, but even this is done tepidly and without any clear plan of acting on those aspirations. When it comes to the economy, I personally don't see any major differences between various political options. They all promote to various degrees some form of European-style social state. I've never heard any Croatian politician talk passionately and with conviction about free markets, fiscal restraint, deregulation (*particularly* deregulation!), or any such topic whish can have a major and direct impact on the economy as a whole.

All things considered, it is still hard for me not to feel a considerable doze of regret that HDZ has been reduced to such a sorry state. When it was formed in the early 1990s, as communism was collapsing and countries in that neck of the woods started opening up to democracy and political pluralism, HDZ managed to mobilize hopes and aspirations of the vast majority of Croatians. In those days HDZ was more of a movement than a political party, and had a distinctly modern and future-oriented flavor. When it came in power it led Croatia to its freedom and international recognition, and under the leadership of Dr. Franjo Tuđman guided the country though a bloody war and some of the most difficult days in our nation's history. It paved the way for the path of joining the EU which is finally bearing the fruit as Croatia is scheduled to sign the accession treaty this Friday. Unfortunately, Tuđman was also an old-school authoritarian, and after his passing away in 1999 HDZ lost power for several years. When Croatian voters eventually gave it a second chance there was a lot of hope that HDZ had evolved into a more refined and forwad-looking party. For a time it looked like those hopes were well justified – the country seemed to be prospering, there wa a lot of construction and infrastructure development everywhere, and people started feeling better off. However, much of that was just a facade. Underneath it all was cronyism of the worst kind (calling it crony-capitalism just wouldn't do it justice), and right now many of teh highest ranking government officials (including the former prime minister dr. Ivo Sanader) are standing a trial for corruption. I might be a cynic, but it's not very likely that many of the corruption charges will in the end stand. Most of the big actors were too good and too smart to leave any paper trail behind them.

For the sake Croatia, I hope that when it enters the parliamentary opposition HDZ will find ways to reform itself and get rebuilt with copetent and capable talent. I might be overly optimistic, but I still believe that there are people out there who wish to enter politics for the sake of selfless public service. Croatia deserves and needs such people. Now more than ever.