Post-Election Serbia

Defence of Victory or the Last Days

Six days after the elections the regime is preparing for the second round of presidential elections and the opposition and the robbed citizens for general strike which has already started in many towns of Serbia

AIM Podgorica, September 30, 2000

(By AIM correspondent from Belgrade)

“In view of the official results of the elections and scheduling of the second round of voting for president of the Republic on October 8, we appeal on presidential candidates and those who nominated them to exercise their rights connected for electoral procedure pursuant the law, and all the participants in the election process to carry on election activities as prescribed by law and established rules”, stated the Supervisory Board for 2000 elections on September 29.

Too late, it seems. In Serbia and Montenegro, the “final report” of the Federal Electoral Commission is not recognised by anybody except those who ordered it. And judging by personal impression, this circle is narrowed down to Milosevic's immediate surroundings and that of his wife Mirjana Markovic.

Before they were finally “dismissed” from the Federal Electoral Commission (SIK) – because it had submitted the “final” report – representatives of Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) succeeded to at least see a part of the minutes of the polling committees on the foundation of which the second round of the elections was scheduled. Results of SIK not only do not coincide with those of DOS, of the other participants in the elections and the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID), but also with the data of that very same commission, starting from the total number of voters in FR Yugoslavia. Before the elections SIK published that the electoral register contained the names of 7,861,327 citizens. In the “final” report this figure was reduced to 7,249,831.

A subsequent “explanation” was given in the name of the Commission by the director of the Federal Statistics Office Milovan Zivkovic: according to him, since 368 polling stations were not opened in Kosovo, the Commission proclaimed the new “total number” with 611,496 voters less. By the way, in a statistically inexplicable way, SIK increased the turnout of the voters in these elections – according to the assessment of CeSID and in comparison with the data of the election headquarters of political parties – by about 250 thousand votes.

The proportional increase of the number of votes in favour of Slobodan Milosevic was drawn from the Kosovar “supply of votes”. Just a glance in about hundred odd reports of polling committees raised suspicion that the reports which “cover” about 142 thousand votes from Kosovo and Metohija were forged. Some published statistical data point out to the possibility that Milosevic's cronies might have in fact toyed with more than half a million votes. After the meeting of the leadership with local heads of Milosevic's SPS on September 28 – at which allegedly, certain local committees demanded recognition of Kostunica's victory – one of the main activists of the regime, Nikola Sainovic, declared that SPS was “going in the second round”. The shortage of 600 thousand voters is “a mistake in processing of data”.

Such “mistakes” are possible, expected and, in fact, they are a component of Milosevic's preservation of power ever since 1996/97 elections. According to the data of DOS, at 11 polling stations in Gnjilane 28 thousand voters have voted; at polling station No.1 in Pec, in the seat of the Patriarch, Milosevic won 4553 out of the total of 4653 voters – without the polling station having been even opened, like in many other places where he has “won” against the opposition candidate (Podujevo, Urosevac, Stimlje, Vitina, Glogovac, Suva Reka, Orahovac, Djakovica, Prizren, Gora, Srbica, Decani, Klina, Istok and Vucitrn). Out of that “supply” of votes Milosevic has “drained” about 142 thousand votes, despite UNMIK's reports according to which only about 44 thousand citizens have voted in these elections.

SITUATION AND CRISIS: Such obvious manipulation of the election will of the citizens served as the last argument against accepting the “gentlemanly” offer of the regime to postpone the final decision on who will be the president of the state until the second round of the elections. “If they have stolen so far, why would not they do it every time?”, is the banal question that arises. Public rejection of the second round – which would mean recognition that there is a stronger will than the will of the voters – the will of a single man – was repeated by Vojislav Kostunica to the offer of Greece to supervise regularity of repeated elections. He invited all interested countries instead to demand and participate in repeated counting of votes in the already held elections. Copies of voters' register DOS possesses were sent to Moscow. That they were received was not officially confirmed, but Russian president Vladimir Putin announced on Saturday the possibility that he would send his foreign minister Igor Ivanov to Belgrade as the mediator in resolving the conflict about the results of the elections.

Among the rumours which can be heard – from the one that Milosevic has sent his family to Moscow, there are stories about the money of “reputable companies” taken abroad, “reliable” news about the flight of the nouveaux riches from the country – only the news about the turmoil that victory of DOS has caused in Montenegro are seriously and publicly confirmed. On Friday, September 29, Zoran Zizic, high official of the Socialist People's Party (SNP) of Momir Bulatovic issued an ambiguous statement that Montenegro would in any case hold the post of federal prime minister after these elections. In this way he indirectly confirmed that SNP – or at least one of its parts – relies on cooperation with Serbian opposition, although Belgrade centre of Yugoslav United Left used this statement to keep repeating with increased intensity that it would have “stable legislative and executive power” in Yugoslavia.

RISKY CALCULATIONS: Montenegrin president Milo Djukanovic, it seems mostly thanks to his own bad estimate – or perhaps bad council which had induced him to decide not to recognise federal elections, but not to obstruct them either – is now in a very unpleasant situation. On the one hand, the Social Democratic Party, as part of the coalition in power, states that after the elections “Yugoslavia does not live here any more” and demands that the president schedules the long announced referendum on state independence of Montenegro. “Montenegrin regime cannot have double standards concerning federal elections and recognise them if Kostunica wins and not recognise them in case Milosevic remains in power”, the Social Democrats declared.

On the other hand, the possibility for Bulatovic's SNP to calculate with the 28 and 19 seats won in the Chamber of Citizens and the Chamber of the Republics, respectively – which provides a comparatively comfortable majority in both chambers of the Assembly of FRY to anybody who makes a post-election agreement with SNP – additionally disturbs Montenegrin president. On the fifth day after the end of the voting, Milo Djukanovic declares that he does not believe that DOS as the winner in the elections will make such deals. According to his words, Socialist People's Party would like to find a partner in Serbia and with 20 per cent of support it enjoys in Montenegro to represent it in a possible union: “I don't believe that this is possible, because I don't wish to believe that in the new democratic structure of Serbia it will have partners for such plans. If they do find them, then it is definitely clear what must be done by the enormous majority of 80 per cent of the citizens of Montenegro who will never accept such state, national and civil humiliation, nor an anti-Montenegrin policy coming from Belgrade, dictatorial or wrapped in a democratic coating, no matter”.

Vojislav Kostunica and DOS can calmly disregard this Montenegrin turmoil. Until the very last moment Kostunica had tried to get Djukanovic's support which would have been politically much more important than the control of voting and “non-interference” in the elections. Similarly, DOS is not making public calculations about the assessment that the other two losers in these elections, Seselj's Radicals (SRS) and Draskovic's SPO, might jointly thanks to the majority of votes they have in the assembly of Serbia cause a crisis of the Republican government and possibly initiate scheduling of early elections in Serbia.

GENERAL STRIKE: Consistently keeping the promise he had made in his “contract with Serbia” after accepting the candidacy for president, Kostunica is unconditionally insisting on the first and the last item in the platform – defence of the will of the people to the last vote as one of the foundations of democracy he advocates. After the very first call to the citizens to peacefully, by general strike, defend the victory they had won in the elections, the whole Serbia responded. Students and teachers of secondary schools in Belgrade, Nis, Valjevo, Cacak, Jagodina, Kragujevac, Gornji Milanovac, Sremska Mitrovica and Sremski Karlovci, left their classrooms on Friday morning, after stating that they would not return to them until results of presidential elections were recognised. The citizens and workers of “state” enterprises went out in the streets and blocked the traffic in Valjevo, Pancevo, Krusevac, Kraljevo, Cacak, Uzice, Arilje, Guca, Pozega, Trstenik, Vrnjacka Banja, Raska, Aleksandrovac Zupski, Pirot, Novi Sad, Sabac, Subotica, Ljig, Preljina, Cuprija, Lazarevac, Vranje, Belgrade Even the streets of Pozarevac, the hometown of Milosevic-Markovic couple, mockingly called “Serb Kumrovec” (Tito's birthplace) until the local victory of the opposition, were crowded by about five thousand citizens.

Local branches of state television (RTS) started broadcasting news from opposition gatherings, and numerous private “non-political” tv stations started broadcasting informative program. Six of about seventy workers of TV Novi Sad were sacked because they demanded that election results of other participants in the elections be published and not just those of SPS/JUL coalition.

Belgrade TV station Studio B, because of which hundreds of Belgraders were heavily beaten by police when last year the state took it forcibly under its control while Belgrade opposition authorities (Draskovic's SPO) more or less silently took the loss – defiantly showed that there was still resistance in it. During broadcasting of the central evening news the new slogan launched by DOS was written across the screen: “He has cracked like a baby's rattle!”

FEAR AND HOPE: On Saturday evening, September 30, it is difficult to predict in what direction the developments will go and the manner in which the situation will be resolved. The Army of Yugoslavia has refused to receive the emissaries of the opposition – former head of General Staff Momcilo Perisic and former spokesman of the army Vuk Obradovic – who requested to give the army commanders election results obtained by DOS and to call for reasonable behavior in the forthcoming developments. On the other hand, Milosevic still has not resorted to severe police intervention. This fact, however, need not mean that among members of his special units doubts have started to arise as seems to be the case with the middle and low-ranking officers of the army.

Discontent of the Socialists in the field, those who are aware that by refusing to recognise election results they will lose the last traces of reputation among their neighbours, seems to be quite strong. Milosevic is still thinking what to do. This is evident from the fact that the campaign for the second round of presidential elections still has not started on state media despite the decision on “recognition” of election results published by the Federal Electoral Commission. His brother and ambassador in Moscow Borislav Milosevic, after having denied rumours about the family seeking refuge in Moscow and then the possibility of Slobodan Milosevic's leaving the country after the defeat in the elections, is now announcing another possibility: “My brother might become the prime minister, even if the opposition does give the president”.

Vojislav Kostunica is relying on the fact that the general strike will confirm the intention of majority of the citizens to defend the victory and finally win the elections. Slobodan Milosevic may count only on the fact that the latest announcement of broadening of the indictment by the Hague Tribunal against him – which is yet another of the significant symptoms that the international community still takes him seriously – will cause a new misunderstanding between Washington and Moscow. This game, however, cannot go on forever.

Aleksandar Ciric

(AIM)