Why won’t Croatia face its past?
On 5 January Zoran Milanović was elected the new president of Croatia. ‘Let’s be united in (our) differences,’ he declared in his victory speech to a cheering crowd, promising to make his country a more tolerant place. ‘I will not divide the Croatian citizens by [bringing up] the issues that hurt them.’
Milanović, a candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and a former prime minister of Croatia (2011-16), took the presidency with 52 per cent of the vote, ahead of the conservative incumbent Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović who was supported by the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).
To an outsider, Milanović’s victory speech might have appeared to be a conciliatory invitation to voters from both left and right to overcome their differences and work towards a better future. But there is a much deeper gulf that cleaves Croatian society than the traditional left-right divide. Gaining its independence in 1991 – though the war in former Yugoslavia lasted longer, only terminated
