Yugoslavia’s ‘Mama Milka’

Press, 11 March 1983, Page 16

Yugoslavia’s ‘Mama Milka’

By

PETER RISTIC

in Belgrade

“She’s not an Iron Lady,” a Western diplomat said of Mrs Milka Planinc, the Yugoslav Prime Minister, last Octoter. Her first stiff, unpopular economic measures had just been introduced into Parliament, but she was not on her feet doing the explaining — that was done by a Vice-Premier. There might have been a tinge of disappointment in the diplomat’s

words. Mrs Planinc, who is expected to visit the West later this year, was not about to enter into any competition for the title held by Britain’s Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher. Iron Lady or not, Mrs Planinc, aged 59, must be pretty tough. Politics in the Balkans is a maledominated profession and she is the first woman to hold such a post in Yugoslavia — or any Communist country. The road to the top in Communist countries can be slippery. When Mrs Planinc took over as president of the party in her native republic of Croatia in 1971, she was put there by the former President Marshal Tito, who had purged her predecessor, Mrs Savka Dabcevic-Kucar. Mrs Planinc, known as “Mama Milka,” then served two terms as party boss and when it came to Croatia’s turn to provide the next Prime Minister for four years, she was apparently backed by the late Mr Vladimir Bakaric, a veteran Croatian Communist. Mr Bakaric died less than a year after she took over the job early last year, but Mrs Planinc is showing that she has the staying power for the most demanding job in the country. She has long experience in politics, although there can be no adequate training for dealing with the constant

quarrels between republics and provinces at the federal level in Yugoslavia. She entered professional politics in 1948. After serving as a partisan during the war and spending a short time in two State enterprises, she went to an administrative school. Political experience she has plenty of, but she is not an economist. Mrs Planiric is saying little herself about how she is coping. After almost a year she is press shy: the newspaper file on her public statements is thin and interviews are rarely given. .But the going must be particularly tough at a time when Yugoslavia is in deep economic trouble. This month the West is expected to provide some $3OOO million dollars in new credits. There will be more to come. Mrs Planinc is naturally in the firing line for criticism from the man and woman in the street who see falling living standards, growing shortages and now rationing for coffee, cooking oil, and detergent. If she is feeling the heat, she does not seem to be showing it Like Britain’s Iron Lady, she never has a hair out of place.’ She differs from Mrs Thatcher in another respect Her husband, an engineer in Zagreb, has never been seen with her in public. Copyright —London'Observer Service.