Goran Litvan: Josipa Rimac is the main suspect in the fight for women’s equality in corruption

Vinkica Duvnjak, Jelena Đugum, Ilijana Krešić Rajić, Ana Mandac, Tena Mišetić, Ružica Njavro, Renata Ojurović, Ivana Pintar, Zdenka Pongračić, Josipa Rimac, Manuela Špoljarić, Nataša Turbić, Ines Uglešić, Marija Vučković.

This is how the experimental women’s list of HDZ for one electoral unit could have theoretically looked until last Friday. Until the major Uskok action that resulted in a series of arrests, three politicians from that ill-fated electoral list ended up (with two male co-suspects) in thirty days of investigative detention. The suspects were swiftly dismissed from their positions in the ministries, and HDZ members are also facing the announced expulsion from the party.

This octopus is indeed specific due to the ‘female quota’. It is rare for women to have the main say in any affair in the male world of high politics and business. An exception was the indictment against the former Sisak-Moslavina County Prefect Marina Lovrić Merzel, but there were not even 14 female characters in that story. However, not all 14 ‘heroines’ from the beginning of the text will be suspected. It is already clear that Rimac did not manage to realize her interests with everyone, but it is evident that she primarily wove a female network around her. According to investigation data that are usually leaked to the media, the ‘queen of Knin’ rarely addressed ministers directly for her dubious business, usually trying to achieve her ‘lobbying’ requests and demands by influencing high-ranking women from other ministries and government offices. Even one state secretary was reduced to the role of a courier who transmitted a USB of unknown content to him.

Regardless of whether these arrests driven by the wind are coincidental or someone timed them before the elections, they logically rounded off Plenković’s mandate. The outgoing Prime Minister has already dismissed about ten of his ministers caught with their fingers in the corruption jam. It is in vain that he repeats that these are individual cases. This ‘female’ octopus with tentacles leading to at least six ministries is a crown proof that the corruption virus has also affected the second echelon of Plenković’s government. As it is at lower levels, we can only imagine. And we can also imagine that Josipa Rimac could be remembered as Croatia’s Clara Zetkin in the fight for women’s equality – in corruption.

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