Serbian View of Croatian Elections

A Lesson for the Opposition and the Voters

AIM Podgorica, 5 January, 2000 (By AIM correspondent from Belgrade)

With the outcome of elections in Croatia, the opposition parties in Serbia are trying to encourage the electorate to make up its mind to take the same step, while regime controlled media are just registering the event and stating that parties of "the left centre have won".

Two expected surprises, the first in the end of last year (Yeltsin's resignation) and the second in the beginning of 2000 (decisive victory of the opposition in parliamentary elections in Croatia) contributed to giving political life in Serbia a dynamic stimulus in the circumstances of the already red-hot relations between the regime and its political opponents. Reactions to these events are diametrically opposed. While the regime, with its cool attitude, is trying to present them as internal affairs of the states in which they occurred, Serbian opposition is doing its best to underline their significance for developments in Serbia, primarily as an example which should be followed in the foreseeable future.

Federal minister of information Goran Matic, cadre of the Yugoslav United Left (JUL), was the first from the ranks of the regime who reacted with a statement which reeked of his party's stand in which he claimed that the authorities were not concerned about the victory of the opposition in Croatia regardless of the fact that it "like the Serbian (was) pro-Western oriented". It was an expected victory for Matic, but he added that the victors should carry out the promises they had given the Croatian electorate. Like the ruling circles, the media controlled by the regime coldly received the outcome of the elections in Croatia, stressing that the Left Centre had won. This, at first sight harmless statement in the vocabulary of the Serbian regime is meant to convey the message to Serbian potential voters that changes "in the neighbourhood" in fact are recognition of the regime in Serbia, where the Left is already in power.

And while controlled media do not go beyond mere registering election results, independent media inform to certain length about election results in Croatia and they are full of statements of leaders of the leading opposition parties on this topic. For example, until early morning hours TV Studio B carried live from Zagreb press conferences in which election results were stated. The citizens without political connotations do not conceal their disposition concerning the change of the regime in Croatia. In public opinion polls, the citizens congratulate the winners but also certain leaders of HDZ, like Mate Granic who in a polite and civilised manner had congratulated the victors.

When opposition political parties are concerned, they are doing their best to underline the similarities between political developments in Croatia and the situation in Serbia.

Among the opposition in Belgrade it is assessed that Serbian electorate could similarly to that in Croatia in the elections place its trust in the opposition which is at least verbally advocating economic recovery, democratisation and overcoming isolation. These three goals were, as far as it is known here, the election slogans of Croatian opposition. Changes in Croatia are also recognised in Belgrade as increased hope for return of refugees.

Serb Revival Movement (SPO), along with congratulations, is not concealing sadness that Serbia has not been a lesson to Croatian citizens back in 1997 when, according to the estimate of the leaders of this party, the regime could have been overthrown. Reasons why this has not happened, as spokesman of SPO Ivan Kovacevic and secretary general Vojislav Vukcevic see it, is in the split of Together coalition when leaders of coalition parties quarrelled over division of posts. Zoran Djindjic is accused of having preserved power for the regime by refusing support to Vuk Draskovic in his candidacy for the president of Serbia and boycott of the Republican elections at the time. Coordinator of the League for Changes (ZSP) Vladan Batic expects that the echo of the changes in Croatia will spread around Serbia, believing the developments in Croatia to be the process of sobering up which has affected the territory of former SFRY. Statements of representatives of other opposition parties all go along these lines. Ljiljana Lucic, vice-president of the Democratic Party, sees elections results in Croatia as orientation of its citizens towards Europe, integrative processes, resolving of fundamental social and economic conditions, and Drago Hiber from the Civic Alliance of Serbia estimates the victory of the opposition in Croatia as a definite road towards democratisation.

Former active general of Yugoslav People's Army and nowadays president of the Social Democratic Party Vuk Obradovic immediately congratulated Ivica Racan the victory noting that possibilities were now opened for establishing and development of inter-state relations of these two countries.

Nebojsa Covic, president of Democratic Alternative who is along with Dragoljub Micunovic of the Democratic Centre trying to bring leaders of Serbian opposition closer together, thinks election results in Croatia a good harbinger which announces the transition from totalitarianism to democracy.

Analysts of Serbian political circumstances believe that the success of Croatian opposition has come at the right moment for Serbian opposition, because a gathering is scheduled for 10 January at which a strategy to resist the regime should be decided. In the past few months there was an abundance of different approaches on the Serbian opposition scene, ranging from overthrowing the regime in the street to the demand to schedule early elections.

If elections in Croatia were experienced by opposition parties as a specific lesson given by the citizens of Croatia to the inhabitants of Serbia, in their first statements the citizens send word to the opposition that it should also learn the lesson how trust of the electorate should be won.

Although official interstate relations between Yugoslavia and Croatia have been on ice for almost a year now, a link is established between developments in the two countries ever since they departed from the joint state. Although confronted, their regimes often fed each other at times when they needed support the most, so impression was created that there was "a secret connection" between them. The situation in the two countries is more or less the same, both in the political and in economic and social sense. That is why they are both in international isolation, poverty stricken and with intolerant political ambience. Yugoslavia is in official and Croatia in never declared isolation.

This situation created the convinction that election results in Croatia will reflect on the state of mind in Serbia. According to all analyses of the public opinion, voters in Serbia have shown a wish for changes but also a considerable dose of restraint and apathy. The citizens of Serbia are tired of both the regime and the opposition.

Ratomir Petkovic

(AIM)