"WASHINGTON TIMES" ON POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN CROATIA

WASHINGTON, July 10 (Hina) - The incumbent Croatian authorities have disappointed a majority of Croats and the international public, the Washington Times said in a commentary published in its issue of Wednesday. #L# "Elected on a platform of economic reform and battling corruption, the current regime in Zagreb has been a dismal disappointment to most Croats and foreign observers," read the commentary signed by Jeffrey Kuhner, an assistant national editor at The Washington Times. The article headlined "Croatia's Political And Economic Crisis" says that Premier Ivica Racan still considers the country's accession to the European Union by 2006 as his chief goal. The European Union and the United States believe that the Racan Cabinet can draw Croatia "out of its current Balkan quagmire" and lead it to a full membership of the EuroAtlantic integration processes. "They are wrong. Like most former communists in Eastern Europe, Mr. Racan has no understanding of an open, market economy. His ultimate objective may be for Zagreb to become part of the EU, but he has no credible plan on how to achieve it," Kuhner assessed. He claims that "more ominously, the ruling coalition is full of ex- communist apparatchiks who are hostile to democracy and the rule of law. Mr. Racan, along with President Stipe Mesic, received their political formation as members of the Communist Party during the old Yugoslavia ..." "It (the current authorities) has clamped down on the media, firing leading patriotic writers and journalists from state-run newspapers and TV networks. Ironically, there is less media freedom today in Croatia than under Mr. Tudjman's reign," the daily claims. "Rather than capitalizing on the ruling coalition's plummeting popularity, the main conservative opposition party, the HDZ, remains mired in bitter infighting," it said adding that the HDZ party leader "Ivo Sanader is behaving more like a neo-communist thug." "Following his re-election as party chief in late April against his archrival, Ivic Pasalic, Mr. Sanader has unleashed a nasty purge campaign in which critics have been removed from positions of influence within the HDZ," it read. "He and his entourage have also sought to bribe and intimidate the few Western journalists attempting to expose this blatantly undemocratic and illegal grab for power," Kuhner claimed. "With early national elections expected to be called this fall or next spring at the latest, the ruling coalition will most likely be returned to office because of the lack of any credible political alternative," he added. (hina) ms