Boris Miksic's Double Life

During those difficult years, Croatia’s first president, Franjo Tudjman, visited Minnesota during the war. Governor Rudy Perpich, the son of Croatian immigrants, invited Miksic to join them. Tudjman and Miksic struck up a friendship, and Miksic was appointed an honorary consul to the U.S. in 1995.

The following year, Miksic self-published an autobiography titled American Dream: A Guy from Croatia. The book has been updated over the years, with new material added after his entry into Croatian politics. But American Dream remains primarily a book about business, pulled along by the current of an immigrant’s story—its successes, disappointments, strategies, and legal disputes, along with a little analysis. And as its subtitle suggests, it’s told in a straightforward manner, never lingering on his ups and downs. Miksic talks about his life as if it just might be commonplace, as if anyone might live it.

And perhaps that’s the point he wants to make to Croatian voters: This kind of life could be yours, too.

Politics as Unusual

Miksic held the volunteer position of honorary consul for a decade. During that time, he began to think more deeply about his homeland’s politics.

He tested the waters in Croatia by entering the 2003 parliamentary elections as an independent, and garnered just 1 percent of the vote. But he learned a great deal about the force of political parties. And that experience of observation convinced him that he could make a legitimate run at the presidency, a position he believed an independent, unencumbered by any party loyalties, could win. Miksic starting spending more and more time in Croatia in the fall of 2004 in order to obtain resident status, then waited for elections to be called.

Like an ever-growing segment of the population in the U.S. and, it seems, in Europe, Miksic doesn’t like the rigidity of party thinking. He’s a Republican in the U.S., but primarily in the fiscal or business-oriented sense. He sees a real need to provide social support to create opportunities, and that requires some government spending. (He believes reinvestment in his business is essential to creating steady, long-term growth.) He admires Ronald Reagan, seeing him as a president who didn’t want to talk much about things but just made them happen. Conversely, when he recalls his friendship with Perpich, he laughs and says, “He was a friend of Bill Clinton, you know.”

In Croatia, he’s sometimes viewed as a staunch nationalist, since he opposes the United Nations’ prosecution of Croatian generals for war crimes. In Miksic’s mind, since the conflict took place on Croatian soil, whatever the army did was a matter of defense, not aggression. He also cautions against EU membership, though only if it’s without a referendum. If the people approve it, then the government should follow.

During his run for the Croatian presidency, Miksic was supported largely by young people seeking a fresh economic and cultural start for their country, conservatives suspicious of the EU, and the nation’s aspiring entrepreneurial class. But his overall support in the council elections was low (6 percent), even in districts in which he’d fared very well during the presidential election. Some Croatian political writers have suggested that Miksic’s support during his presidential run was a protest vote against the entrenched political establishment, not necessarily an endorsement of his politics. His decrease in support in the local elections may testify to that, or perhaps the negative campaign against him paid off.

Politics as Soap Opera

Miksic continues to expand Cortec’s business in Europe and Asia. India and South America are the next markets he hopes to enter.

The business of politics continues, too. Miksic is considering another run for president when elections are called in a few years. The political situation in Croatia continues to be rather unpretty. He’s been the target of numerous accusations against his character. (A former police officer, for instance, has charged that Miksic stole televisions as a young man.) The current president, Stipe Mesic, sued Miksic for slander after Miksic joked that Mesic had been given a house in France by that country’s Secret Service. Mesic won the suit in 2006, but Miksic filed an appeal, which is still pending.

But perhaps strangest of all, and most telling of the challenge Miksic faces in returning politically to a free Croatia, is to be found on a popular Croatian soap opera. The show, Villa Maria, inspired by the frenzy of the presidential race, incorporated Miksic as a character—casting an American to play him.

Politics, as Miksic would probably agree, can be a very strange business.