Fragmentation on the Political Scene of RS

Split of Biljana Plavsic's SNS and Convention of Socialists

Does the split of SNS mark the departure from the political scene of the last belligerent leader or the most reliable Dodik's ally – Biljana Plavsic? And the supremely well designed convention of Socialists salvation from catastrophe? Is Dodik in the background of dissolution of both parties?

AIM Banja Luka, 5 May, 2000

The split of the Serb People's League (SNS) of Biljana Plavsic was made official at the extraordinary convention of this party on 3 June, on the same day when the already divided Socialists had their second convention. Both parties have split along the same seams and, as claimed by some, under the influence of Belgrade regime. However, the glory and misery of the split of these parties were marked by different iconography. Slow dissolution of Plavsic's party began two years ago when she lost presidential elections to the opposing candidate of the Serb Radical Party and the Serb Democratic Party, Nikola Poplasen.

Even after her replacement, Biljana Plavsic claims that she will not withdraw and announced that she will run in the forthcoming elections under the same banner her party was registered with. She claims that nobody can inherit SNS, because “others cannot exploit its platform since they have voted against it”.

The extraordinary convention of SNS recruited a very small number of Plavsic's supporters like Svetozar Mihajlovic and Branislav Lolic. On the other side there remained, surprisingly for many, majority of the ministers in Dodik's cabinet (Novak Kondic, Marko Pavic and Jovo Basic). What surprised most of all was that ministers Ostoja Kremenovic and Djuradj Banjac were absent from the session. People who are better acquainted with the personalities and curricula vitae of some of the ministers from the ranks of SNS do not think that they would voluntarily renounce privileges offered to them by ministeral posts. This remark especially refers to the minister of finance Novak Kondic who maintained this post regardless of the political option which formed the government – SDS or “Harmony” coalition. For example, when first public conflicts among the Socialists broke out, Zivko Radisic hoped or believed that ministers from among the Socialists would choose ideals of the party rather than the privileges that are brought by ministerial posts. When his ministers chose differently, Radisic quickly and radically changed his opinion about his recent fellow fighters who “accepted the role of puppets which divided the socialists” and “preferred expensive cars and other privileges”.

And while Plavsic believes that the split in her party's ranks occurred under influence of official Belgrade on Jovan Mitrovic and Marko Pavic, some of the political protagonists, especially from media close to Plavsic's opponents, believe that Milorad Dodik is in the background of all this. On the eve of the decisive session of the convention of SNS Pavic denied accusations according to which he was the cause of the split in SNS by order of Belgrade: “I have never made any statement nor met anyone and organised anything, but least of all by anybody's dictate. I have never worked by anybody's dictate, either from within the party, within the government or from outside”. Jovan Mitrovic was interested only in the question of responsibility of the president of the party for “catastrophic results in the past elections”. “It is only natural that responsibility for such a situation in the party primarily lies with the president of the party, but if the extraordinary convention of SNS establishes that responsibility for the failure and situation in the party lies with vice-presidents and the main board of the party as well, they too should be replaced”, declared Mitrovic just before the extraordinary convention of SNS.

In certain media it is stated that, as soon as he learnt about the intentions of the part of SNS headed by Jovan Mitrovic, Dodik decided to enter into a secret agreement with him according to which Mitrovic's supporters would continue to support Dodik in the parliament. According to the same sources, Dodik would renounce all the ministers who have become closer to him than to their own party (Basic, Banjac, Savic, Dokic, Kremenovic, among others). According to the same secret document, Mihajlovic and Lolic were also in a bad way, as well as president of the management board of electric company of RS Rajko Dukic evidence of whose embezzlement were handed in to Dodik by Mitrovic himself. In return Dodik should approve of Plavsic's withdrawal from the political scene, although she had lately been on it just formally anyway.

Although she was his loyal ally and most powerful support, it is not impossible that Dodik actually has decided to break up good relations with the by now former president of SNS. Plavsic had seriously intended to run in the forthcoming presidential elections in October as a candidate of Harmony coalition. Advised by the bad outcome of the previous elections when Plavsic's defeat had tied his hands, Dodik and supporters of his party had no intention to nominate Plavsic as their candidate. The new SNS created by election of the new president of the party, according to its leader Kostic, “not for an instant questioned support to the concept of Harmony coalition. “It is true”, Kostic believes, “that redefining of certain issues in Harmony is necessary”. Drago Kalabic, one of the most prominent leaders of SNS demands revision of the agreement on establishment of Harmony because it is not made up of those who signed the agreement any more.

At the same time Kostic announced that ”the work of some of the ministers from the ranks of SNS will be looked into” which coincided perfectly with “the secret pact between Mitrovic and Dodik”. Secretary general of the Socialists Tihomir Gligoric, who was defeated three times (against Dodik in the ministry of labour, as a candidate for the chairman of the council of ministers of B&H and as the opposing candidate of Zivko Radisic for the post of the president of the party) publicly warns that “Dodik is behind the scenario of breaking up SNS in the same way as he broke up the Socialists”. The split of these two parties strengthens Dodik's own party.

Plavsic's place was taken by completely anonymous Dragan Kostic, a doctor of medical sciences – a surgeon, who had not even been on the list of deputies in the past elections. Plavsic's comment about his election was: “There are those who are much wiser and perfidious and they will soon use and discard him”. She did not name any of them, though. Kostic himself has already checked legal possibilities of succession of SNS and he says that the situation is quite clear: “There is only one SNS registered as the party of Republika Srpska, not of Biljana Plavsic”.

On the other hand, the Socialists, among many guests (about one thousand of them), masked that their members were dropping out by a supremely well organised and pompous second convention of this party. The intention was to show to the public that they have come out of this turmoil even stronger and united, and that for all the weaknesses among them “discredited and corrupt members of Democratic Socialist Party are to blame”, who were not that while they were under their banner.

The speech of the president of Socialists and cheering that accompanied it reminded of Tito's speeches and enthusiasm of the masses. Thunderous applause burst when he said loud and clear that Socialist Party was created “at the height of the war which was imposed on the Serb people and as a reaction to weakening of the links with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia whose support and understanding we enjoyed, thanks to which RS was created and defended”.

Re-election of Radisic for the president of the Socialist Party did not surprise anybody. One might say that everything else was a surprise – instead of Socialist International, the anthem “God's justice” was played, instead of a high delegation of the Socialists from Serbia, an anonymous representative of young Socialists came to the convention, a representative of the Socialist Workers' Party of Stipe Suvar arrived from Croatia, and a representative of Zubak's New Croatian Initiative was the guest from B&H. The appearance of Cuban consul was received as if Fidel Castro himself had come among the Socialists of RS.

All the parties from RS also sent their representatives, except the seceded Democratic Socialists and SNS of Biljana Plavsic who had their own extraordinary convention at the same time.

Those who were present at the gathering of Socialists were amazed by the glamorous and expensive performance and the gifts they received quite unexpectedly: four T-shirts each with the name of the party on them, a number of beautifully designed brochures, notebooks, pens

The glory and the misery of these two party performances leave the impression that the ones and the others, with or without the influence of Belgrade, have politically buried themselves. The reaction will come after the autumn parliamentary elections. Until then, one can do nothing but believe Dodik's Social Democrats when they claim that the initiative for replacement of Plavsic has originated from the party itself, but that they will establish “good relations” with the new leadership, and that ministers from the ranks of SNS will remain at their posts. And that they will hold the Socialists to their word – if in the forthcoming general elections they achieve results worse than in the past local elections that the newly elected leadership would voluntarily abdicate from power in the party.

Tanja Topic

(AIM)