Nearly three months ago, independent youth all over the Arab world started revolutions to remove from power dictators and their regimes, targeting even those countries which are considered relatively moderate. Noticing at the same time anti-government protests led by the official opposition in Albania, I predicted the spread of this phenomenon in other Balkan countries. But I didn’t expect to see Croatia in a face-off with protesters before Bosnia or Serbia.

Corruption and unemployment

The evolution of the Croatian protests started nearly two years ago with the abrupt and surprising resignation of then-Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, who was also the leader of the strongest and most powerful Croatian Democratic Union (CDU). With his departure and the installment of his ally, Jadranka Kosor, as the first female PM in modern Croatian history, new revelations of the catastrophically poor condition of the Croatian administration, economy, health and education system were shocking.

State prosecution investigations unearthed a network of corruption led by Mr. Sanader. The network was getting bribes from state-owned companies through a scheme sophistically hidden behind a small, almost unknown, PR company. Only in the last three years Mr. Sanader and his closest aides, probably including the...More >>