PREELECTION ATMOSPHERE IN SERBIA

AIM, Belgrade, Dec. 15, 1993

According to a public opinion poll carried out by phone by STATLAB concerning the attitudes of the voters in Serbia, most of the seats in the Parliament will go to the SPS. The support it would get, however, would not be sufficient for the formation of a majority government. Even in a coallition with the new Arkan's party, the SPS would find itself in a position weaker than the one it held in the Parliament before its dissolution. Neither would a coallition of democratic parties be able to form a stable government.

According to a public opinion poll carried out by the Statistical Laboratory of the Faculty of Political Sciences - STATLAB, only a week before the elections, the Socialists were closest to winning, but they woul not be able to form a stable government. The poll took place on December 6, 7 and 8 by telephone, on a sample of 1100 citizens, adjusted to the election system in Serbia, with controlled effects of the structure of the sample according to sex, age and education. Had the elections taken place at the time of the poll, the Parliament of Serbia would have had the following composition: SPS - 90 seats (possibly 2-3 more), DEPOS - 50 to 54 seats, DS and SRS - 34 to 41 seats, DSS - 13 seats, SSJ (Arkan) - 10 to 12, and DZVM - 6 to 8 seats.

Due to the bias of the election system which requires the minimum of as many as five percent of votes just to participate in the competition for the seats in the Parliament, and a large number of electoral units, major parties and the parties whose supporters are concentrated in small areas have a significant advantage. That is how the SPS would get over 36 per cent of deputies in the Parliament with only 28.5 per cent of votes. By far not as great, but still favourable effects of the election system are enjoyed by the Radicals and the DEPOS, but the geratest loss will be due to the fact that the Party of Serbian Unity and Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia will get more than two but less than five per cent of the votes in many districts. Minor parties will this time win much less support of the voters than in the previous elections, so that only here and there, SNO, NS, and the Reformers from Vojvodina are mentioned, and Babicc's SSS approaches the necessary requirement of five per cent, but never actually reaches it.

The ruling SPS is still without competition in Prishtina and Leskovac; it is powerful in Smederevo, Niss and Uzzice, and it loses in Belgrade, Kragujevac, and Zrenjanin. The popularity of the DEPOS and the Democratic Party lies completely to the opposite of that of the SPS: none in Prishtina and Leskovac, and its position is best in Belgrade, Zrenjanin, and Kragujevac.

So far the voters were irresolute in the choice between two groups of parties: "the democratic" ones (DEPOS, DS, DSS) and "the patriotic" ones (SPS, SRS), and when they gave up ones, they inclined towards the others. This time, DS is by far the most commonly mentioned "second choice". At a fair distance behind it, but still mentioned quite often as a good second choice is the DSS. Three times less frequently, the voters mention DS, and twice less frequently than the DSS, the DEPOS and the SPS are mentioned, while the other parties are completely unattractive as the second choice. This means that the DS, followed by the DSS and then the DEPOS, have possibilities of further expansion. The popularity of the DS as the second choice of the supporters of the SPS is quite obvious.

Certain instability of political orientation is manifested in a comparatively high percentage of those whose present choice differs from the one in the previous elections. A significant portion of disappointed voters of the SPS are choosing the DS now (every tenth), then the DEPOS, then the Radicals. According to everything, the greatest losers could be the Radicals who are losing their votes to the SPS, the DEPOS, and the SSJ.

According to the results of the poll, not a single party would be able to form the government. The Socialists, with only some twenty seats would be too vulnerable to find it worth the while to form a minority government; even with an unofficial but strong support from the SSJ, they would be weaker than they used to be in the Parliament dissolved at their wish. Contrary to them, a coallition of democratic parties (DEPOS + DS + DSS) would have 108 deputies, which is more than those of the SPS (with SSJ

• possibly), but not enough to form the government. Similar is the case with the "downtown connection" between DEPOS and DS (the coallition which won in the central Belgrade municipality in the elections last year and formed the government there), or Ssesselj's announced coallition with the two democratic parties.

The coallitions which could have a majority are the SPS and the DS or DEPOS, SRS, DS and DSS. Both of them are hardly possible, although there are speculations about secret links between the Democrats and the Socialists. The relations between the SRS and the DEPOS are such that their association would be a great, but not a completely impossible surprise.

Finally, although unfavourable for the SPS and other powerful parties, but not for the President of Serbia, a possibility (and the inevitability) of formation of a "concentration" government, that of "national salvation", government "of experts" or similar is in sight. Such a government would inherit a heap of problems and would acquire responsibility for a mass of issues it has nothing to do with.

Whatever the case may be, Serbia has problems in store for it. In spite of everything, the voters who are repeatedly told that they are voting for or against patriotic visions of the future, will actually be deciding whether the difficulties which they will certainly face in the nearest future will be just one, first step towards the revival of their country and their return to life, or just another step towards the bottom which keeps evading them deeper and deeper into the abyss of humanity.

Srdjan Bogosavljevicc