Elections in FRY, The Day After

"He is Finished!"

On September 24, 2000, after 13 years of unquestioned rule, has the unthinkable happened - removing of Slobodan Milosevic from office in the elections?

AIM Podgorica, September 25, 2000

(By AIM correspondent from Belgrade)

At noon on September 24, it seemed that Milosevic's regime had entered these elections completely prepared. The first reports from about 9000 polling stations in FR Yugoslavia spoke about big crowds and very slow progress of voting. Complicated elections - presidential, two parliamentary and local - made the procedure extremely slow. Indeed, the fact that hardly one fourth of the voters had voted by noon increased alarm that expectations would not be met of experts who carried out public opinion polls and who had forecast the turnout of between 70 and 80 per cent, which would narrow the space for manipulation with votes. A few ten of foreign journalists - permanently accredited or newly arrived

• were banished from Belgrade.

During the whole day, state television was reporting that the elections were passing in an orderly manner, all “foreign monitors” confirmed in front of cameras of Radio-Television Serbia was “a most democratic country” and finally, as traditional by now, the first results arrived from polling stations in Kosovo. On Belgrade Square of the Republic – or Freedom, or Truth, depending on the party which mentions it – a team from state television station started constructing a stage for celebration of election results. After that, the spokesman of Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) announced that people would wait for election results on near-by Terazije. Symbolically, it turned out, after the election theft in 1996/97 protesters set out on their walks from that very place.

EXPECTATIONS: Despite such developments during the afternoon, on Sunday evening some Belgrade cafes started serving free whiskey and vodka as they had announced. That things have started in the unplanned direction was indicated by “loud silence” of state media in which they passed over the initial results of the elections in different polling stations after Tanjug's evening information that the total number of voters who had exercised their civil right reached 70 per cent. The opposition, however, kept its promise that counting and results would be published immediately. They were assisted in this by the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID), but also the election headquarters of the Serb Radical Party (SRS) of Vojislav Seselj. The latter had in all elections so far showed that they are excellently organised for informing about outcome of elections.

Some time after nine o'clock a concert of folk and popular music started at the Square of the Republic. With no audience except for a few ten passers-by and a mass of opposition supporters who started to gather at the beginning of Kolarceva street from where they were pushed back towards Terazije by fifty odd members of special units. Even the few people in front of the stage enjoyed the music, following its rhythm with three fingers in the air – their middle finger pointed and two beside it bent.

In Belgrade Media Centre which is also at the Square of the Republic, leading experts for investigation of public opinion and interpretation of statistical data held press conferences every hour or two. The initial restraint in estimate of the trend favourable for DOS one hour after midnight was replaced by – also restrained at first – optimism. At that moment, DOS, CeSID and SRS had received the data that based on about two per cent of counted votes, that is, more than 300 thousand of them, Vojislav Kostunica was in the lead over Slobodan Milosevic with 56.83 in relation to 34.23 per cent (the rest of 10 per cent were shared by the remaining three presidential candidates).

TIDE OF OPTIMISM: About two o'clock in the morning, the Federal Electoral Commission - illegally – interrupted counting of the votes of convicts, policemen and soldiers. The security officers of the parliament threw out representatives of the opposition from the seat of the commission and then locked the premises. Before it interrupted publicaton of data at 1.30 h, the election headquarters of Serb Revival Movement (SPO) stated that Vojislav Kostunica was in the lead by 3 to 1 over Slobodan Milosevic.

Some time later, a high official of Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia, Zoran Sami – who is also an expert on intricate election rules – referring to the results from 33 voting stations – stated that presidential elections would be won by Vojislav Kostunica in the first round. At that moment it could have seemed that DOS was ”blowing up” the data in the manner typical of the regime. However, the optimists noticed that the police cordon was withdrawn from Kolarceva street, allegedly with obvious relief on the faces of the members of special units.

About fifteen thousand of Belgraders gathered on Terazije welcomed every piece of news on the course of counting the votes by chanting. Despite professional restraint even the journalists in Media Centre and election headquarters of political parties started to yield to victorious emotions. One by one, the news confirmed convincing victory of DOS in local elections where, due to Milosevic's rules, a defeat had been expected. In Belgrade which has so far been ruled by minority government of SPO with support of the Leftists, a great triumph was achieved by winning 102 out of 110 seats in city parliament. All 60 seats were won by DOS in Vracar municipality where the opposition has had the majority ever since the first multiparty elections in 1990. In Valjevo, Kovin, Gornji Milanovac, local committees of the Socialists recognised defeat in the elections during that very first night.

At 3.30 in the morning, state television stopped publishing the results after acting spokesman of the Socialist Party Nikola Sainovic said that Slobodan Milosevic was in the lead with 44 in relation to 41 per cent won by Vojislav Kostunica and – almost in an identical way like Ivica Dacic in 1996 – scheduled the next press conference for some indefinite time “tomorrow”. The team of editors and journalists of RTS, who had not exactly been very enthusiastic, split up about five o'clock in the morning. Half an hour before that, Zoran Djindjic, manager of campaign of DOS, declared victory of DOS “on all levels”. The mass of people in Terazije split in perfect order, perhaps unable to grasp such a great victory at once.

VICTORY AND OTHERS: If data of party election headquarters and CeSID are correct, the convincing victory of DOS in local elections is undoubted. Early in the afternoon on September 25, this was confirmed at the joint press conference of SPS/JUL coalition: Ljubisa Ristic wisely concluded that this was the result of “our bad work” despite “catastrophic idleness” of the opposition. According to his words, the left coalition has maintained the two-thirds majority in the Chamber of Republics of the federal assembly – that is, it counts on 20 “Montenegrin” and seven deputies of its own who in “executing power” can block every initiative in the assembly of Yugoslavia. All things considered, the regime has lost domination of the Chamber of Citizens – to DOS – which it has held so far only thanks to Seselj's assistance and that of another ad-hoc fabricated radical party.

If nothing unexpected happens until the declaration of official results – it is possible to conclude that an almost unique change of an more than authoritarian regime is going on in Serbia – in the elections. But even if the left coalition manages to force out the second round of presidential elections – which is its obvious intention in the first moments after it has come back to its senses after the knockdown – the biggest losers of the just held elections in FR Yugoslavia are already known. It is above all Serb Revival Movement. Its leader, Vuk Draskovic, found strength to admit on September 25 that the decision of his party to run in the elections independently had been a mistake, to congratulate Vojislav Kostunica on the victory and to appeal on Slobodan Milosevic to peacefully recognise the defeat. The other loser is Montenegrin president Milo Djukanovic. His decision to ignore federal elections – however convincingly explained it may have been – proved to be very short-sighted. What consequences it may produce it is hard to tell, except that it has left Slobodan Milosevic the possibility to calculate with republican elections in 2001.

Aleksandar Ciric

(AIM)