Democratic Pluralism Eludes Croatians : Politics: Old authoritarian ways persist. The opposition is split and voiceless as new elections loom.

Not much has changed in the 20 years since Savka Dabcevic-Kucar fell out with the ruling Communists and transformed her sunlit salon into a nerve center for Croatia’s fledgling opposition.

Then as now, those outside the ruling circle had little chance of airing their views on state-run television or in the pages of Zagreb’s government-controlled newspapers.

Then as now, the opposition had no claim to public funds to compete with the ubiquitous propaganda of the leading party.

Then as now, many feared that to criticize the leadership openly could provoke trouble at work, social ridicule or even repression.

Croatia threw off Communist rule two years ago, declared independence from the Yugoslav federation last year and was recently welcomed into the European family of democratic nations when 30 or so countries extended diplomatic ties.

But those outside the all-powerful Croatian Democratic Union contend that the republic has a long road ahead before it establishes genuine pluralism and that the ruling party does not fully live up to its middle name.

“I believe that some elements of democratic society do exist. But there are so many fields on which we still have to fight,” said Dabcevic-Kucar, a charismatic 67-year-old who spearheaded Croatia’s earlier, unsuccessful drive for independence from Yugoslavia in 1971. She and others active in the meager opposition complain that the war and manipulated media have relegated them to the political fringe.

President Franjo Tudjman and the Croatian Democratic Union, known in Croatian as the HDZ, won massive support in April, 1990, when the republic held its first multi-party election in half a century and voters felt that the choice was between right-wing democracy and unreformed communism.

As the ruling party’s campaign for secession isolated and angered Croatia’s 600,000 Serbs, the opposition role fell to the Serbian Democratic Party, whose candidates won in the republic’s predominantly Serbian regions. But Serbian legislators later refused to take part in a political system in which they were outvoted. They boycotted Parliament, leaving the HDZ virtually without challenge.

The war that followed Croatia’s June 25 declaration of independence also weakened the opposition by fusing most political forces with the common goal of defeating an invading power and gaining international recognition. Now that fighting has ebbed, Croatia is recognized and presidential elections loom, the scattered and voiceless opposition is chafing at its bonds.

Independence was supposed to deepen democracy, but the war has intensified the leadership’s control over information and fostered a retreat to the authoritarian ways of the old Communist regime.

Shortly after Tudjman’s forces suffered their worst military defeat of the war by losing the Danube River city of Vukovar in November, the president’s harshest critics were jailed for allegedly plotting an armed rebellion.

Those arrested were from the extremist Croatian Party of Rights and its paramilitary wing, and their detention could be seen as an attempt by the HDZ to rein in reactionary forces threatening minority Serbs. But Tudjman had allowed the party leader, Dobroslav Paraga, a free hand in the fight against Serbian rebels until Paraga began accusing the leadership of mismanaging the war, making it clear that the arrests were political rather than an attempt to protect minority rights.

Milan Vukovic, a Paraga ally, says Tudjman and the HDZ will pay the price when new elections are held for the presidency later this year. No prominent figure has yet come forward to present a serious challenge to Tudjman, but political opponents are hoping to cash in on broad disaffection with the status quo.

More moderate parties, such as Dabcevic-Kucar’s Croatian People’s Party and the Croatian Social Liberal Party, voice many of the same complaints as the hobbled extremists.

Limited access to the media is the opposition’s chief complaint, as well as its biggest obstacle to winning more support.

One of the HDZ’s first actions after it gained power was to purge the media of many Serbian editors and reporters, which it asserted was a necessary step to end Communist influence.

Despite the personnel changes, the media retain the Communist-era practice of pandering to the party in power. A senior Croatian editor, who did not want his identity disclosed, said the press has been more strictly controlled over the past seven months than at any time since 1971, when Communist authorities cracked down on the nationalist outbreak led by Dabcevic-Kucar.

Croatian Information Minister Branko Salaj concedes that the media have been slow to embrace independence, but he insists that they have it. “The media still work as if they were under the old system,” Salaj said, referring to the Communists.

Funding is still largely provided by the state, and few publications have dared to bite the hand that feeds them.

Stipe Mesic, federal Yugoslavia’s last president and now chairman of the HDZ, rejects criticism that his party fails to foster pluralism.

“There are no restrictions on the press other than a prohibition against disclosing information of military significance,” Mesic said. “If anything, (government) institutions do not intervene enough, because there are situations when complete lies are printed.”

Some see Croatia’s democratic shortcomings as temporary rough spots that are expectable in a country that escaped Communist rule less than two years ago.

“Everybody has to learn and to accumulate experience in a pluralistic society,” said Slaven Letica, a former adviser to Tudjman who has forsaken politics to return to academic life. “This is not specific to Croatia, but in the whole Eastern Bloc we have a similar situation. . . . You cannot expect to have within two elections a normal, liberal or social democracy in the Eastern Bloc.”

Western politicians who have visited Croatia in recent months also excuse the residual barriers to pluralism, contending that the republic leadership has demonstrated it is on the right track.

Croatia’s law on elections is still making its way through Parliament, and some proposed provisions could serve to intensify the power of the incumbent.

Most of the considerable financing provided by Croatian emigres has been funneled to coffers controlled by the HDZ, which promises to provide Tudjman with the biggest political war chest once campaigning begins.