On Sunday, Croatians gave Ivo Josipovic a landslide victory in the country’s presidential election despite an ad campaign by his main rival that sought to portray the avant-garde composer and law professor as a Dr. Evil-like figure scheming to return the nation to communism.
The basis for the charge against Mr. Josipovic was that he is a member of the Social Democratic Party, made up of former communists, and had said during a campaign rally that he hoped to turn the map of Croatia red — but that was in reference to the fact that regions of the country won by Social Democrats are shaded red in the nation’s press. What made the charge seem particularly desperate was that the man making it, Mr. Josipovic’s opponent, Milan Bandic, is himself a former communist and was even a member of the very same Social Democratic Party until November, when he was expelled for choosing to run against the party’s candidate for the presidency.
Mr. Bandic’s distinctly unsuccessful ad — he lost Sunday’s vote 60-40 — was entitled “Stop Red Croatia” and is embedded below. The ad is in Croatian, and mainly repeats variations of the words for “red” and “comrade” over and over, but luckily it is unsubtle enough — thanks to some evil laughter, a blaring siren and the villainous stroking of a kitty — to make sense to those of us who do not govori hrvatski.
Mr. Josipovic won 60 percent of the vote on Sunday despite, or because of, the fact that he apparently lacks the kind of charisma that has propelled politicians in the former Yugoslavia to success. Running against Mr. Bandic, Zagreb’s colorful mayor, made that quality even more apparent.
In an interview with the Croatian magazine Nacional last year, Mr. Josipovic responded to the charge that “that you are overly even-tempered and calm,” by calling his professorial coolness a virtue:
If ever there has been a time for an even-tempered and calm president, then it is certainly now in these turbulent times. The ability to keep a cool head in analyzing problems and creating synergies among all of the key players on the public scene is decisive in finding a way out of this deep economic crisis. It is a serious undervaluing of the Croatian voter to say that this is not the time for reasonable, even-tempered and honest people. What is more, I would say that it is an overly ripe time for that kind of politician. There has been too much imprudence, hysteria and populism. Besides, we can see to what they have led us. On top of it all the executive branch of government even jokingly tells us that we are “up the creek without a paddle”. In this regard, I promise citizens serious change from a “banana republic” to one governed by the rule of law.
In that same interview Mr. Josipovic also told Nacional, “Croatia needs a president that pools people of creative power and wishes to hear them.” Mr. Jospiovic was no doubt referring to the need to bring creative thinkers of all sorts, not just artists, into government, but his campaign was supported by popular Croatian musicians. On behalf of a man who seems even less like a rock star than a typical Balkan politician, several Croatian stars made the flashy music video embedded below for a catchy song called “The Path to Happiness,” extolling his virtues. Mr. Josipovic made a typically understated appearance in that clip, as he did on stage, behind a keyboard, at a concert where his supporters filled Zagreb’s main square last month.
Writing about Mr. Josipovic on New Yorker’s Web site on Monday, Alex Ross pointed out that performances of two of Mr. Josipovic’s compositions — for “Samba da camera” and “Ars diaboli” — can be enjoyed on YouTube. In a Canadian Press article Snjezana Vukic reports from Zagreb on Monday that Mr. Josipovic apparently has no intention of letting his new job get in the way of his own creative work: “His friends say he still plans to use his spare time to compose his first opera, about the life of John Lennon.”