Ivo Sanader — fall of an almost perfect leader

“You are a corrupt prime minister and a war profiteer”: quoting the judge presiding over his trial, Jutarnji Listannounces the conviction of Ivo Sanader, who received a ten year sentence for corruption. The Zagreb daily explains that the verdict against Sanader, Croatia’s prime minister from 2003 to 2009, has set —

… a historical precedent. The rule of law and the vox populi are finally in agreement. The verdict confirmed something that was common knowledge: that Croatia had a corrupt prime minister and corrupt authorities, which were willing to sell out vital state interests for a few million euros. [...] Sending Sanader to jail should mark the definitive end of the gangster government model. [...] It is good news for Croatia’s image in the world, [because] the drive to combat corruption was one of the main conditions imposed on Croatia in the process of its accession to the EU.

The disgraced former head of state will leave behind a somewhat paradoxical legacy, adds Jutarnji List —

He cleaned up the HDZ [the Croatian Democratic Union which ruled the country in the wake of independence in 1991], getting rid of the hard right. He rebuilt bridges with Serbian minority and gave the impression of being a cultivated statesman (speaking fluent English, German, Italian and French), who knew what he wanted. He opened doors to EU accession negotiations with his determination to give full cooperation to the tribunal in The Hague, which included handing over General Gotovina who was on the run [His arrest was one of the conditions of the EU accession negotiations. However, Gotovina was finally acquitted on 16 November].

Sanader was found guilty of receiving 10 millions euros from the Hungarian energy consortium MOL, and 500,000 euros from the Austrian bank, Hypo Group Alpe Adria. “The long fall of Ivo Sanader” culminated with the first ever corruption conviction against a former European prime minister, remarks Die Presse. The Viennese daily looks back on the many scandals involving Hypo Group Alpe Adria, which was very present in the Balkans in the 1990s before being nationalised when the financial crisis erupted in 2008, and notes that the implications of the affair go beyond the borders of Croatia —

Sanader played a key role, but he was not the only one. In comparison to the sums that disappeared after the nationalisation of the bank, the kickbacks received by Sanader amounted to peanuts. [...] For Croatian journalist Predrad Lucić, there should be a slew of convictions: “from Munich to Thessaloniki. Everyone is delighted to have found a scapegoat in Sanader.