Rigging the Bids: Public Procurement, Undue Influence and Accountability in Croatia

The landscape of the consolidated party system of Croatia is dominated by two political forces; the conservative HDZ and the social-democratic SDP which have been exchanging places in power since the modern establishment of the state in 1991. This paper aims to analyse the connection of the change of government between these two parties and a change of pattern in public procurement awards occurring after the transition from one government to the other. Due to the volume of activities and financial transactions, public procurement is an area particularly vulnerable to corruption, and as such it presents us with an opportunity to monitor undue influences occurring. We use the official government data from opentender.eu - 211,292 tenders in the period between 2012 and 2019 Croatia to analyse the bidding awarding patterns over the years. We then compare this with the data from public registers and available databases on business owners and political donors, including the court business register, and financial reports of political parties. To further identify possible links between politically exposed persons and other legal or physical persons, we rely on Mozaik veza, an online tool that connects these relationships. In so doing, we test the utility of the novel technologies and big data as accountability mechanisms for the detection of the bidding and awarding patterns emerging between 2012 and 2019 in Croatia.