Zagreb Crisis - Protests and Resolution

Protests and Resolution

The spectacle of the nation's capital having two administrations not recognizing each other and the country's leader refusing to acknowledge the will of the voters led many to believe that Croatia had experienced a dramatic drop in democratic standards during the war, and that this state of affairs will not be alleviated for as long of Tuđman was in power. Paranoid statements made by Tuđman, who increasingly began to describe opposition and its supporters as "foreign agents" and "enemies of the state" also contributed to that assessment.

In November 1996, more than a year after the elections, and with the crisis still going on, the Croatian government decided not to renew the broadcast license to Radio 101, a popular local radio station known for vocal criticism of the ruling regime, and gave it to Ninoslav Pavić, a media tycoon widely perceived to be rather tolerant to the regime. The announcement of the decision sparked a spontaneous protest of citizens of Zagreb and around 120,000 people gathered at Ban Jelačić Square, in one of the largest single protests in recent Croatian history.

Although the immediate cause was the desire to preserve a popular symbol of the city - an aim which they ultimately achieved - many protesters used the protest as an opportunity to express disagreement with Tuđman and his authoritarian policies, who was at the time out of the country, undergoing stomach cancer treatment at the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington. Upon hearing what was going on, Tuđman reportedly ordered the police to take action against protesters. The then Interior Minister Ivan Jarnjak reportedly refused to do so, which resulted in his resignation. Following the protests, Radio 101 managed to retain its independence and broadcast license. After returning to Croatia Tuđman made statements attacked the protests, calling his opponents "green and yellow devils" and accusing them of being foreign mercenaries and traitors who sold out for money.

The regular City of Zagreb local elections were then held in April 1997. This time the opposition parties ran on their separate tickets, thus allowing HDZ to win 24 out of 50 seats. When two representatives of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) switched to HDZ in exchange for lucrative government posts, HDZ finally gained an absolute majority in the assembly, which enabled them to legally appoint Marina Matulović-Dropulić as mayor. This formally ended the crisis.

However, in 1998 a mass rally was called once again by the unions at the city's main square. This time the reason for the rally was a drastic drop in the standard of living. The police, however, refused to issue the required permit for the gathering to take place, and police forces cordoned off the square to prevent protesters from reaching it. For several hours, angry citizens attempted to push back the police cordons, but were unsuccessful. The media attention focused on the event, further promoting the idea that Tuđman's rule was increasingly authoritarian instead of democratic. Tuđman commented on all of these events yet again, by calling the people involved in them "small-time cattle" ("stoka sitnog zuba").