First hundred days have passed; another hundred will be hell...

During the first hundred days of Milanovic's Government there was no day without falling victims of the former reign. It's like the new Government arrived and initiated a composition of falling domino pieces. Worlds collapse, lives are falling apart, future disappears...  Sisak Zeljezara, Dioki, Jadrankamen, Dalmacijavino, Kraljevica's shipyard, Vjesnik, Adriachem... Everything is falling apart. One bankruptcy after another. Workers yell, swear, cry... And no one yells at Ivo Sanader or Jadranka Kosor, who didn't control crisis and initiate recovery. They swear at Zoran Milanovic, Radimir Cacic, Slavko Linic... They elected them because they wanted to get rid of poor governance and low life standards. But as far as things seem for now, in order to get better life it has to become much worse. In order to see a perspective, we should touch the bottom of hopelessness, and no one voted for such thing over the elections last December.

Citizens are disappointed. They are aware of difficulty of economic situation, but somehow they hoped the new Government would suddenly manage to turn things over and stop things from falling apart. They didn't get that. Hopes have gone down the drain. Companies are being shut down, the number of people at employment agencies is constantly increasing, someone is on strike in order to obtain a salary and there is no perspective on the horizon. They expected a turnover from the new Government, and now they have to deal with abyss. In the first hundred days the Government led by Zoran Milanovic, who calls trust won over the elections as a credit received from the voters, has spent much of that credit. There were lots of announcements from the ministry level, but many of them weren't good. The real action is to be expected yet, and people don't know if they should start to cry already. Since, if the first hundred days were like dealing with truth, another hundred will become hell.

In the first hundred days fuel for motorized vehicles had a bad habit of getting more expensive each two weeks, causing headaches on every visit to a gas station. In the first hundred days, however, we can expect prices of electricity and gas to jump much higher. It will be a real strike on family bills. You can somehow manage without a car, but how, for example, to live in a dark? How to choose between food for children and electricity bill? Does this really have to be a choice lots of Croatian families will have to deal with? In another hundred days something will repeat as in every tourist season. Lines of hastily trained waiters, chefs and maids will rush to the shore to get some money from tourism.

The new Government has raised VAT and they are pleased to say the budget is filling better than expected, not only because of that tax rise of course. But is this enough comfort to the citizens who pay more and more for a monthly basket of needs? The new Government said it had a priority to start investments and to open new working positions. But the working positions are mostly shutting down for now. There is no new job on a sight. We can only trust (or not!) to Radimir Cacic who says that the second half of the year will be better. There are no new investments as well. Considering this fact, we can only trust (or not!) to the first Government's vice-president.

We are about to experience sales in the second half of the year. Along with season sales in stores, world trade counter will offer the Croatia postal bank, Croatia osiguranje, Petrokemija and who knows what more. Like Kukuriku coalition didn't announce new VAT increase and bankrupts, it didn't announce a sale of family silver during their election campaign... The experience of last privatization says that the new owners will cut down costs on people. It means the job agencies will still be filled with those who lose their jobs due to restructuring . And shipyards in plan for privatization will remain without groups of people. Things always run like that. This is, unfortunately the only constant matter in Croatia. Only the job agency marks ''positive'' results every month. Only unemployment grows ''positive''.

So, there is no need to seek the reasons due to which the first hundred days of the prime minister Milanovic didn't pass in the optimistic atmosphere. We shouldn't look for reasons that cause lack of enthusiasm in Croatia, and people feel like zombies without a life tingle in them. They can only expect the light at the end of the tunnel and hope it won't be a train that will run them over.