TUDJMAN HOLDS INTRODUCTORY SPEECH AT HDZ HEAD COMMITTEE SESSION

ZAGREB, Dec 7 (Hina) - The President of the Republic of Croatia and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party, Franjo Tudjman, spoke in his introductory speech at the HDZ Head Committee session of background and purposes of all intentions to replace the democratic authorities of the sovereign Croatia and of circumstances under which the HDZ party was in 1989 with its programme for creating the sovereign and independent Croatian state. At the beginning of the second HDZ Head Committee session Tudjman welcomed all present at the session, particularly the President of the Croatian Christian Party, Ivan Keglevic, the President of the Croatian Conservative Party, Andro Ozetic, the President of the Christian Democrats of Medjumurje, Vladimir Mesaric, the President of the Croatian Party, Hrvoje Sosic, and representatives of the HDZ of Bosnia-Herzegovina (HDZ B-H), Kresimir Zubak, Bozo Rajic and Jadranko Prlic. Addressing the session Tudjman said that following the East Block's collapse, the West, European powers and the United States of America favoured the maintenance of the Versailles order, and international factors favoured the maintenance of the former Yugoslavia at all costs. Under such international circumstances and the concurrence of such strategic views and orientations both by the European powers and the United States, Croatia, on the path toward its independence, was in very difficult conditions, Tudjman said. Such international circumstances, very impedimental to the Croatian independence, were certainly favourable to the opponents of the HDZ programme and the sovereign Croatia on the domestic political scene, he added. Tudjman noted that those opponents were the successors to the expression of not self-fulfilled Yugoslav integrational and Yugoslav unitarian views, which ideologically remained from the last century and World War One period being supported during the Socialist period. Tudjman spoke of numerous initiatives aimed at the destabilization of the HDZ and thus of the Croatian state since the independence. The opponents, in collusion with certain foreign circles, through, e.g., the 'Open Society' by Soros, Helsinki Committee and other human rights organization, had permeated through the entire society, he warned. Tudjman added that those circles were trying, by all means, to persuade their like-minded persons and the public that the opposition was being strengthened, while the influence and reputation of the HDZ party was constantly declining in Zagreb and throughout Croatia. He revealed a summary of an opinion poll conducted by the Zagreb University institute of applied social research, and said that according to the poll's findings, the HDZ would muster between 36 and 40 per cent of votes at the level of Croatia at the moment when the poll was conducted (October 1996), while the HSS (Croatian Peasants' Party) and the HSLS (Croatian Social and Liberal Party) would receive each 12 to 14 per cent of votes, and the SDP (Social Democrat Party) between 7 and 8 percent. In Zagreb the HDZ would gain about 35 per cent of votes, while the HSLS would get 19 per cent, the HSS 13 per cent and the SDP 9 per cent. More than 62 per cent of respondents to the poll backed fully or generally the way President Franjo Tudjman was performing his duties in office of the Croatian President, while 25 per cent did not back it, but 13 per cent of respondents would vote against him. At the end of his speech Tudjman addressed the leadership of and the entire membership of the HDZ in Croatia and Diaspora. "Let us be consistent in implementing centrist party's as well as national and state policy, the policy of reconciliation and development of Croatia into a prosperous, social, democratic, law- based state," Tudjman said. The HDZ was not and should not change into any monolithic party with the ruling Establishment, but it must remain to be and develop as a broad nation-wide democratic party. The unity and consistence in the implementation of the centrist policies in the HDZ leadership gave the guarantee, in current domestic and international circumstances, to the firmness of the democratic order and of the overall efficient organization of the state administration and to the stability of the international position of Croatia, Tudjman said. (hina) jn mš 071513 MET dec 96