When Tihomir Orešković first took office as the president of the new Croatian government, regular readers of Lider often began conversations with the same theme: ‘You wrote before the elections that you wanted a prime minister from the ranks of businessmen. What do you say now? Look, he can barely speak Croatian, he doesn’t understand anything about the relationships in domestic politics. Karamarko and Petrov are tailoring the list of ministers for him at the Sheraton, and he is nowhere near… He will be just a puppet on a string.’
At that moment, it truly seemed that the idea of a businessman at the head of the government would be forever compromised. The only (wobbly) defense was the customary call to give a new player one hundred days.
There is still a month and a half left until that deadline, but the picture has changed significantly. Orešković shows a surprisingly high degree of independence and stubbornness and manages to hold his own against other players. Primarily those from the Patriotic Coalition, which was his selection. From the delay in the decision to dismiss the head of the Security and Intelligence Agency, Dragan Lozančić, to the procrastination in appointing Milijan Brkić as Minister of Veterans to the appointment of Jakša Puljiz, an official from the SDP government, as his integrator advisor.
Games of Thrones Just as it was too early to declare Orešković a ‘lost cause’ after seven days, it is also too early to assert that he has definitively established himself as a strong prime minister before the hundred days are up. To follow his fate and moves, perhaps two perspectives can help.
The first relates to the advantage in competencies that someone who has survived and advanced in a multinational company like the pharmaceutical giant Teva, where Orešković worked, can capitalize on. Many are surprised at how he navigates the local political court games. Only the naive can imagine that there are no court games in multinationals. There are ‘players of someone’, there are alliances against each other, shifting from one camp to another, sabotage, sending trial or false signals, ‘greasing the board’ for the boss above or a competitor for a higher rung in the hierarchy. There are home gatherings where pacts are made over a barbecue in the garden…
However, there is an important difference: for a manager in a multinational to remain in a position to participate in court games, they must simultaneously do the basic job. Achieving measurable goals that bring profit to the company. And control is at least every three months. Those who, like Orešković, have advanced in a multinational had to simultaneously do the basic job and play the corporate games of thrones. Unlike local politicians, for whom it is enough to play court games. There has been no control of actual results for four years, and even then, the actual result is not looked at, but loyalty to the party president. Thus, for example, some of the most incompetent ministers of Milanović are today in the nice shade of parliamentary benches. The condition and skill of action that Orešković brought from Teva is a significant challenge for the first man of HDZ, Karamarko.
