Serbia After Elections: "Disagreement" Only About the President

At the height of the opposition's celebration of victory, Milosevic decided to remain in power

AIM Podgorica, September 28, 2000

(By AIM correspondent from Belgrade)

Since Monday, September 25, Serbia is celebrating the victory of the opposition in local, federal parliamentary and presidential elections. Several hundred thousand people - if not even more than a million - are gathering in city squares, enthusiastically shouting the slogan of Otpor (Resistance movement): "He is finished!".

On Monday afternoon the results of the elections which were systematically published by party headquarters of Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) and Serb Radical Party (SRS), and the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID) pointed out to the triumph or an enormous advantage of DOS in relation to other candidates. "Loud silence" of the coalition of Milosevic's Socialists and the Leftists of his wife Mirjana Markovic (SPS/JUL) who stopped issuing their data just a few hours after closing down of polling stations, additionally increased conviction about the victory of the coalition.

On Tuesday, September 26, DOS was able to publish victory in more than one hundred cities and towns in Serbia - in many of which it simply wiped out not only the Left coalition, but also the local authorities of Draskovic's SPO and Seselj's Radicals. Jokingly, some Belgrade journalists wondered whether this means that Serbia will have a single-party regime all over again. In the elections for the Chamber of Citizens of the Assembly of FR Yugoslavia, candidates of DOS won 59 seats, while SPS/JUL coalition won 44, so it believes that it will have the majority of votes with Montenegrin deputies of Momir Bulatovic (30). In the Chamber of the Republics, out of 20 deputies from Serbia, 10 will be from DOS, 7 from SPS/JUL, 2 will be Radicals and one from SPO. In the assembly of Belgrade, DOS will have 105 out of the total of 110 deputies.

FIGURES AND LETTERS: Faced with true results, the left coalition modified its initial statements on the second day after completion of the elections. Milosevic's "lead" was reduced from 56:33 to 44:41. The defeat in local elections was admitted through clenched teeth. At a joint press conference, president of JUL Ljubisa Ristic let slip the following: "The Left has lost wherever it did not work well, and they won even where they worked disastrously badly". No less impressive was the statement of Ivica Dacic, president of the Socialists of Belgrade - which is actually the very post from which Slobodan Milosevic had set out in his conquest of power in 1987 when it was the City Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia of Belgrade and the most important party function in the state - that "it is nobody's fault that we have lost local elections, because we ourselves had passed the election law".

On Tuesday, spokesmen of SPS and JUL, together or separately, kept repeating that they will nevertheless, be "the bearers of legislative and executive power" in federal parliament with "absolute" majority. Rather creased and with obvious black rings around their eyes for lack of sleep, Gorica Gajevic (secretary general of SPS), Ljubisa Ristic and Momir Bulatovic, without victorious smiles, informed the public that Slobodan Milosevic was leading with 45 to 40, "so we expect with optimism the arrival of the remaining results from other polling stations and the probable possibility that our candidate of Slobodan Milosevic will win in the first round of the elections".

At the same time, the citizens of Serbia were in squares and streets awaiting and loudly cheering the results of counting of the votes. According to the data of DOS, the Radicals and CeSID, Vojislav Kostunica was leading in the presidential race from the very beginning. The stable advantage of Vojislav Kostunica, the trend confirmed during the very first post-election night by leading experts for statistics and election mathematics, ranged between 54 and 58 per cent in relation to 32 to 35 per cent of Milosevic's votes.

MATHEMATICS, OFFER AND DEMAND: The impression that by recognising defeat on the local level the regime was offering some sort of a deal was confirmed by the Federal Electoral Committee three days after the end of voting and after the representatives of political parties had been excluded from its work. According to the first (and as it turned out last) preliminary report of the federal electoral committee, Vojislav Kostunica won 48.22 and Slobodan Milosevic 40.23 per cent of the total number of counted votes. The offer - according to the standards of Milosevic's supporters - was more than "gentlemanly": you won the local, we shared the parliamentary, let us go into the second round of presidential elections.

Having taken into account all (ir)relevant variable quantities in favour of Milosevic, mathematicians concluded that actual ratio of votes could not be below 50.7 : 41.3 in favour of Vojislav Kostunica. CeSID's data say that, according to the mutually recognised turnout of the voters, and in case that all the votes inaccessible to control were given to Milosevic and not a single one to Kostunica - the ratio of the votes won would be 54.2 : 37.2. "In these circumstances in order to enable Milosevic to go into the second round, it is necessary to forge all 600 thousand ballots printed in Albanian language", declared Zoran Lucic, Professor of Mathematical Faculty in Belgrade. He added: "Milosevic has without doubt lost the elections in the first round”.

Even if they considered or talked about it, Vojislav Kostunica and Democratic Opposition of Serbia could not have accepted this offer. The key pre-election promise of the opposition was that they would defend the electoral will of the citizens to the very last vote.

VICTORY, AND NOW WHAT: Because of the silence of the Federal Electoral Committee, the only one that has prerogatives to publish the results of presidential elections, DOS announced it would publish "its" results in front of the building of the federal assembly on Wednesday, September

1. Tensions reached a dangerous level at noon when it was declared that the police banned the gathering with the explanation that it might disturb the Federal Electoral Committee in its work. What work, it was not said.

At least 200 thousand Belgraders gathered that evening at the square of the Republic and all the streets from Slavija to Kalemegdan, not so much because of the performance convened in celebration of the victory in which among other Goran Bregovic took part, as in expectation how DOS would react to the "challenge" to run in the second round of presidential elections with the advantage which was believed by Milosevic's advisors to be an offer that could not be rejected.

When he finally appeared in front of the citizens almost two hours after the official beginning of the gathering, Vojislav Kostunica gave his probably best political speech. The attempts to steal the votes had failed as well as the bargaining for the second round, he said adding that there was and would be no haggling about the results of the elections. Because "democracy is not founded on the will of a single man but that of the people, of the majority. If it is founded on the will of the majority, we are that majority and not they. If we would agree to make any concessions it would mean that the will of one man is above the will of the majority". Besides, Kostunica sent two direct messages. To the Socialists: "We will not do what your leadership has done. We will not persecute people because they think differently. We will not seize other people's property, we will not break into other people's homes, nor buy for trifles intentionally ruined enterprises. We will not take money abroad... We want, like you, a normal and decent country ruled by law and order". To the army and police: "We are one of a kind. The army and the police are part of the people and their task is to guard the state, and not one man and his closest... Should those who did not fear NATO bombs now fear one man, even if his name is Slobodan Milosevic?"

RUMOURS... AND RESULT: During Kostunica's speech Politika already had "the latest and the final" decision of the Federal Electoral Committee which - without signatures of at least two permanent and not a single member of the full committee - decided that the two presidential candidates would have to run in the second round of the elections.

On Thursday, September 28, the main board of SPS seated in session. After the midnight statement of the Federal Electoral Committee, information of DOS that it would state its decision on further steps only after SPS stated publicly what its intentions were sounded too "calmly". In the meantime, rumours are spreading about resignations of high state officials, about flight of known "businessmen" from the country, about airplanes which are waiting for the "Family" to pack its suit-cases, orders to the police not to tolerate mass gathering of the citizens any more, about the army put on the alert, call-up for "military drills". "He is finished!" and "He broke like a rattle" are becoming increasingly convincing slogans of the opposition. However, there is still no answer to the question what the cost of this victory will be. The last victory over Slobodan Milosevic.

Aleksandar Ciric (AIM)

Entrefilet:

Total Chaos

According to the latest information published late this evening, the left SPS-JUL coalition is preparing for the second round of the elections for president of FRY. On this occasion, Slobodan Milosevic, as state television reported, had a meeting with the Socialists and JUL in order to prepare for new elections which should take place on October 8. Leader of the Radicals Vojislav Seselj also declared this evening that as far as they were concerned, Kostunica was the new president. His victory in the first round was also recognised by SPO. Through Filip Vujanovic, the ruling Montenegrin Democratic Party of Socialists also recognised the victory of Kostunica who is expected to dissolve the federal parliament as soon as possible. This was also done by the Serb Orthodox Church. Tonight, a while after 22.00 h, and after the latest statements of the Federal Electoral Committee and the official proclamation of the second round of the elections for president of the state, a new spontaneous gathering of the citizens, and the police, started in the streets of Belgrade.