Croatia Awaits Revelations from Ex-PM Sanader's Book

Croatian daily Vecernji list on Thursday will launch what it calls "the most anticipated book of the decade", written by the former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, who led the country for several years in the 2000s and was subsequently indicted for alleged corruption.

The book is Sanader's view of Croatia's politics, told through his experience as premier and entitled 'The Age of Politics - De-Tudjmanisation'.

The title is a reference to the ruling HDZ party's move away from the legacy of its founder, the first democratically-elected Croatian President, Franjo Tudjman, who died in December 1999, after which the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ party lost power to the opposition for the first time.

But Sanader told Vecernji list in an interview on Saturday that there was "a false discourse" both on the right and left that there was such a process during his time as the HDZ's leader between 2000 and 2009.

"I claim that my politics were a continuation of Tudjman's politics from the 1990s but contemporary, modernised and presented in the light of the 21st century and through these four major themes - the attitude towards national minorities, especially Serbs, cooperation with the Hague Tribunal [for war crimes], ZERP [the protected ecological fishing belt in the Adriatic Sea] and HDZ reforms," he said.

He claimed that his politics were "just an upgrade" of Tudjman's "basic paradigm".

Vecernji list and some other media have suggested that the book will spectacular revelations that may worry some public figures, but Sanader insisted that this was not his intention.

"No one has to be scared, I don't write to scare, but in order [that we] know what we have gone through, what was the truth and what are...