Serbia after the Elections

Who has Fooled Milosevic?

In his race with deadlines Milosevic has set a record by ending his presidential term nine months before it was due to expire, lulled by false information of those surrounding him that he had won the elections even before they were held.

AIM, Podgorica, October 5, 2000

(From AIM Correspondent from Belgrade)

Competing with reconstructed bridges and newly-built flats, Slobodan Milosevic has set a record in cutting the deadlines by bringing his four-year term to an end nine months before it was up. There were two major reasons behind the decision of the Yugoslav President decided to cut his current term short and put the huge political machinery for securing the new one in motion. The first one was his assessment that as a result of difficult economic circumstances it would be impossible to preserve some kind of economic and social stability until the next summer when the regular change of president was to take place. The second reason was his intention to place the next American administration before an accomplished fact by securing a new four-year term of office thus letting it know that he was planning to stay in the game for quite a while.

Easily and summarily carried out and without a precedent in the world constitutional practice, constitutional amendments have encouraged Milosevic and his entourage that he could freely try his hand at winning a new term, convinced that he would beat the "non-existent" opposition at direct elections. Assurances of his family and obedient political apparatus helped create such a climate. Both circles gave him the answer that Snowhite's stepmother got from a mirror when she asked who was the fairest of them all: the family encouraged him, his closest political subjects lied that the victory was his even before the elections started. As for Milosevic, he did his best to proclaim the opposition non-existent, convinced that he could thus disperse every doubt. At the same time, the left bloc, led by his wife Mira Markovic, launched a campaign against the Radicals so as to wipe them out from the political scene to which, according to those well-versed in the political events of the past decade, they have come thanks to none other but Milosevic's great help. At one time he even stated that the Radical leader Vojislav Seselj was his favourite political personality in the Serbian opposition.

Milosevic's crushing defeat at presidential elections came like a bolt from the blue creating confusion among his closest associates. Immediately after the elections Nikola Sainovic, a man of Milosevic's greatest trust, said one thing, Gorica Gajevic, Secretary-General of the Socialist Party, and Ivica Dacic, President of the Belgrade Socialists, quite another. Although they all wanted to "clarify" the previous speaker, the confusion with which this was done created an impression in the public that Milosevic's proteges had lost all political direction. Aware of their leader's practice to ruthlessly eliminate from his surrounding every sinner, the Socialist Party's top ranks started fearing for their own life.

Milosevic was always known to prefer false flattery than unpleasant truth and his closest political associates behaved accordingly showering him with information about his favourable political rating, although that was quite unfounded. Everyone who wanted to win President's favour would come to him with praises, for anything different would place them in his bad books.

The list of political cadres whom Milosevic got rid of because they gave him information that were not to his liking or opposed his political moves, is rather long. It includes his former closest associate from the time of the Eight Session of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Serbia (CK SKS) Borisav Jovic, then the Academy member Mihajlo Markovic, former party official and director of state TV Milorad Vucelic, chief of state security for many years Jovo Stanisic, Army General Momcilo Perisic, Belgrade Mayor Nebojsa Covic, republican delegate Radovan Raka Radovic, and among the latest ones, Zoran Lilic, President of Yugoslavia before him. According to information that have leaked from the circle around Milosevic, new dismissals are to be expected. After October 8, we shall see who is packing his bags.

Some rejected cadres claim that Milosevic fears more the people from his party than his political opponents from the opposition. That is why he has created a large gap between himself and his closest associates, while the Left, run by his wife, has the role of purging Socialist ranks of unsuitable cadres. Those well-versed in the situation claim that many Socialists have climbed up the party ladder because they were obedient to Milosevic's wife.

Milosevic's state-political apparatus completed a tremendous job in the pre-election period. It "only" forgot to check the public reaction to that. Self-confidence which counted on the electorate's blindness boomeranged on it. For, same as the regime thought that it should call the elections before their regular time because of its inability to preserve social peace over longer term on account of deteriorating economic situation, faced with poor supply of basic foodstuffs, fall of living standards, monetary chaos and other things the citizens came to the conclusion that they had nothing good to hope for under the current regime.

Electoral results show that the majority of the electorate had cast its vote against the authorities, from the communal up to the federal level. The Socialists and the Left of Serbia also lost the federal elections, but whether they will remain in power depends on the Montenegrin lever which is in the hands of the Socialists of Montenegro. That gives them a possibility to tip the scales, i.e. to increase their influence in the federal authorities as arbiters.

Electoral results have made former authorities realise that their turning a blind eye to the very existence of the opposition was unforgivable political blindness for which the citizens punished them with a devastating defeat. In contrast to the results of earlier elections when the Socialist Party footed the bill and was forced to win the power with the aid of coalition partners, now its leader also got a rap on the knuckles. This is a new quality that the latest elections have brought because the citizens have shown that they were not ready to let anyone decide their destiny.

Ratomir Petkovic

(AIM)