The Monkey Cage

Zabranjeni spot “Stop crvenoj Hrvatskoj” from Milan Bandić on Vimeo.

The ad is from the recently concluded Croatian Presidential Election, where Ivo Josipovic (an academic(!) and composer) defeated Milan Bandic. The ad was launched by Bandic against Josipovic in an attempt to mimic the mid 1990s playbook of Vaclav Klaus and Boris Yeltsin by claiming that a victory for his opponent would return the nation to Communism. According to Robert Mackey in the New York Times, this accusation was based on the fact that Josipovic had promised to turn the map of Croatia red because the press shades areas of the country won by Josipovic’s party - the Social Democratic Party - in red. The claim was made all the more ironic by the fact that Bandic himself had been a member of the Social Democratic Party up until November of last year when he was expelled for - wait for it - deciding to run for president.

[Hat tip to Andrew Therriault and The Lede - NY Times News Blog]