Zlatko Hasanbegović

On 22 January 2016, Hasanbegović was appointed as Minister of Culture by Prime Minister Tihomir Orešković. A part of the cultural workers expressed their dissatisfaction mainly due to his comments about anti-fascism and his lack of experience in management of culture. Civic initiative Platform 112, which brings together 70 NGOs, held a protest in front of the Parliament on the day when the new Government was approved, urging MPs to vote against the cabinet of Tihomir Orešković because of Hasanbegović.[24] The Croatian Journalists' Association issued a statement in which they strongly opposed the nomination of Hasanbegović as Minister of Culture.[25]

The Israel-based Simon Wiesenthal Center urged the Government of Croatia to dismiss Hasanbegović, saying he took a disdainful attitude towards Croatian resistance to fascism during World War II.[26] The Croatian Helsinki Committee (HHO) and the Initiative EU 1481 of Matica hrvatska dismissed the accusations against Hasanbegović as unfounded.[27][28][29] Hasanbegović stated that the protests against him were not supported by any facts but based on a selective use of his different statements.[21] During this period, a video from 2012 appeared in which he openly refers to the ousting of the Nazi Independent State of Croatia (NDH) as the "biggest national tragedy and defeat" for Croatia.[30] Hasanbegović said about the video that he would not apologize for his words.

As one of his first moves as minister, Hasanbegović announced that there is no need for the continuation of Government funding of any non-profit media.[31] The International and European Federations of Journalists joined their affiliates in Croatia, the HND and the Trade Union of Croatian Journalists (Sinoh) in condemning this decision, as well as the Hasanbegović's dissolution of the Expert Committee for non-profit media before the end of its mandate.[32]

Under the new budget for 2016, the Government of Croatia stopped funding certain cultural projects and non-profit media, which Hasanbegović described as "racket money", adding that tax-payers' money will no longer be distributed in a non-transparent way for neither the left-wing nor right-wing media.[33]

In May, he signed a cooperation deal with Hungary's Minister Zoltán Balog.[34] At the 17th electoral convention of the HDZ, Hasanbegović was elected to the HDZ Presidency and received most votes.[35]

After Croatian Parliament supported motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Orešković, his whole Cabinet resigned while the Parliament dismissed itself which led to new election. On 2016 parliamentary election, Hasanbegović was elected to the Parliament as HDZ's candidate. In the aftermath, newly elected president of HDZ, Andrej Plenković, formed a new government with new Minister of Culture being Nina Obuljen Koržinek and not Hasanbegović for which he expressed his dissatisfaction.

In May 2017, Hasanbegović decided to participate in the Zagreb local elections on the independent list of Bruna Esih, who ran against the official HDZ candidate. Hasanbegović also criticized the HDZ leader Andrej Plenković, saying that his path "is wrong and leads to moral quagmire".[36] The HDZ soon announced that Hasanbegović was evicted from the party.[37] The independent list won 8.23% of the vote in the local election and Hasanbegović became a member of the Zagreb Assembly.[38] Following the elections, Hasanbegović and Esih formed a new political party, the Independents for Croatia.[39] The new party formed a majority in the assembly with the incumbent Mayor Milan Bandić, provided the name of Zagreb's Marshal Tito Square was changed to Republic of Croatia Square.[40]

In 2019, following a split with Esih, he became the president of the newly founded Bloc for Croatia political party.[41]

In 1996, Hasanbegović wrote at least two articles in the magazine Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, named after the fascist Independent State of Croatia (NDH), in which he glorified the Ustashas as heroes and martyrs.[42][43] The magazine was edited by the far-right Croatian Liberation Movement (HOP) and Hasanbegović was described as a young HOP member in it. Commenting on his texts from 1996 twenty years later, Hasanbegović said that the crimes of the Ustashas were "the biggest moral lapse" of the Croatian people in their history, adding: "Using totally peripheral statements I made as a student more than 20 years ago and taking them out of context is nothing but political manipulation".[44] He also denied that he was ever a member of the Croatian Liberation Movement.[20][21]

In 1993, Hasanbegović posed for a photo in Split at an event of the 9th Battalion of the Croatian Defence Forces (HOS), the Croatian Party of Rights' paramilitary (1991–92), wearing a cap with what is allegedly an Ustasha Militia badge.[45][46] The photograph's resurfacing in 2016 and its circulation in the Croatian media caused major backlash. Hasanbegović denied he was wearing an Ustasha cap, claiming the photo had been manipulated and that he wore a black cap of the HOS.[47] A similar or identical cap, with an Ustasha badge, was worn by some members of the 9th HOS Battalion during their gatherings in the 1990s.[48]

In 1998, he took part in demonstrations organized by pro-fascist groups against the renaming of Zagreb's Croatian Nobles Square back to the Square of the Victims of Fascism. Hasanbegović commented that he was not connected to the organizers of the protests, and that he joined every protest in Zagreb in the 1990s.[49]