The arrest of MP Barbara Antolić Vupora is yet another in a series of such events involving high-ranking state officials. More or less everything has been said about them as such. Of course, it remains to be seen what exactly the SDP MP is being charged with. But after the relatively recent arrest of HDZ Health Minister Vili Beroš, this is the second case of an official being arrested in just a few months. Of course, this was also the subject of controversy between the government and the opposition. The arguments used in this kind of political game have already been stated many times, so we will not dwell on it too much this time.
There is, in fact, one open question that is often mentioned in all discussions when something like this happens. And that is - did the corrupt chicken or the corrupt egg come first. That is, to what extent does society itself generate corruption at all levels of politics because it simply cannot produce any better representatives of itself in government. That is, to what extent does corruption simply come from below, to what extent is society generally shaped in such a way that it is the only acceptable way of acting for Croatians, not only in politics, but also in the economy and all other areas of society. Ultimately, in private life as well. Is Croatian society simply such that it cannot do better? There is also that cynical saying that it is easy to be Sweden where corruption is minimal, and this is for the simple reason that Swedes live there. And since Croats live in Croatia, then we are as we are. Although again, we should not be such a fatalist and just accept the thesis that Croats cannot do better. That they are simply like that and that there is no help for it. That we will forever live in a quagmire where little or nothing can be achieved without someone getting at least a little "scratched" in almost every situation.
Because there is another school of thought. That the government - whether at the state, county or municipal level - by its actions from above imposes on the rest of the population almost an obligation to participate in all sorts of scams. So, that a lot depends on the people who rule. And that most of them are prone to corruption. That very few of them are able to resist the temptation to use their position for their own material and financial gain.
And the truth, as usual, is somewhere in the middle. Like those two supply and demand curves. When the supply curves of corruption and the demand curves for it intersect, then what usually happens happens. And it happens quite often. Sometimes in an extremely spectacular way.
There are various answers to why this is so. Some believe that it is a legacy of both Yugoslavia and the previous system. Because Austria-Hungary, whatever it was according to the Croats, was a country of law and order. And yet, half of today's Croatia was part of Hungary, which neither then nor now can boast of a high level of rule of law. Some say that it is a consequence of the transition to a market economy that state institutions, especially the judiciary, used to operating in conditions of a contractual economy, could not follow. They simply could not follow, control, or regulate hundreds of new legal affairs that did not exist before 1990. And the transformation and privatization itself was a great social experiment, the consequences of which even Germany is struggling with to this day. There was also the war that brought chaos in which all social energy was spent on defending the country. In addition, the internet dealt a major blow to the media from which they have not recovered. So that control mechanism is somewhat lacking. There are many other possible reasons for the sad state we are in. Analyzing all this would require time and much greater resources than a newspaper editorial office.
Of course, corruption and scams will always exist. There is no period or society in which it did not exist. It exists in Sweden, which is often mentioned in these parts as a model of order and work that we will never be able to achieve. But the matter is in the scale of the whole phenomenon. Are these individual cases or a consequence of normal social relations? Scandinavia falls into one group, Croatia into another. How to qualify for the Champions League, in which countries with corruption are the exception, is the million-euro question. One to which, it seems, no one in Croatia has a clear and reasonable answer.
Bonus video:
