Kosor vs. Kosor

If she won the election, her party colleagues would be lined up every time she would come, as they would be negating Sanader and praising her over newspaper interviews.  But HDZ didn't win the election for the third time in a row and Jadranka Kosor is acting like she still expects to be surrounded with awe, only election winners could count on.

''Collapse, threats, imputations, spreading lies'', these are expressions she uses when talking about the current HDZ. The condition of the party is like in the times when the first HDZ president Franjo Tudjman died. The membership has gone apart, there is a mutual distrust and disagreement but Jadranka Kosor claims that the responsibility for such conditions lies on ''aspirants'' for the position of HDZ president. There is no word on how she actually contributed to this completely unfriendly atmosphere. It is one more piece of evidence that she is still unable to observe her own situation and the party’s situation in a realistic way.

Everything could have ended up differently, if she immediately started to prepare herself for inner party election immediately after Sanader's resignation from the position of the Government president, and if she initiated parliamentary elections a year or a year and a half ago. In winter or fall 2009 Jadranka Kosor would have won the elections for the party president. With that kind of political legitimacy, she could have arranged the Government more efficiently and accomplished main goals from the Program of economic recovery she got all praises for.

However, she missed that chance in 2009, and the same mistake was repeated after the parliamentary election last year. If Jadranka Kosor resigned from the position of party president after the election defeat, like some other party officials did, ''imputations and spreading lies'' would be far away from her, maybe there even wouldn't be such things. Jadranka Kosor would have been remembered as a long-running member of the parliament, the Government vice-president and the prime minister who managed to complete Croatian negotiations with the European Union.  Is that a small achievement for one life? Jadranka Kosor obviously thinks so, as she earnestly tries to fight for another ''real and complete democratic mandate''. But these methods aren't entirely democratic, and as she isn't protected by a winner’s aura, she exposed herself to reactions of political opponents she obviously wasn't ready for.

Nowadays Luka Bebic retails stories how Kosor asked her party colleagues to fawn upon her. She answers that the problem with Bebic and other colleagues started to appear when they have realized she won't be a ''little helper''. Probably things really were that way but this is unimportant today. The party hasn't been dealing subjects relevant for its membership and voters for a long time. It deals with rotten inner party relations. Considering the fact she can't fix it, she could have done something for herself at least. To retreat, to find inner peace, save her dignity. But what's that according to the challenge of governing?