THE PRODUCTION OF UNITY

The New Serbian Government

AIM, Beograd, March 22

The opposition and the Socialists quarrelled for three days in the Serbian Parliament over the issue whether the government proposed by the Prime Minister designate Mirko Marjanovic, which in addition to the Socialists includes two members of the New Democracy (otherwise members of the DEPOS coalition) and two (expelled) members of the Democratic Party, was a government of national unity or not. The forming of the government of "national unity" was actually a successful move of President Milosevic made in the context of the new deployment of political forces, which enabled the Assembly to additionally legitimize the economic programme the regime started implementing even before the new Government was elected.

The broken up, exhausted Serbia and its Parliament at loggerheads needed a full three months to elect a new Government. After the elections, which brought about a new deployment of political forces, and also a stalemate in the relations between the Socialists and the opposition, it was quite uncertain how the new Government would look. At one moment it even seemed that the opposition, no matter how heterogenous, could make a compromise to overpower the Socialists, by only 4 votes "short" of the absolute majority.

The three-months long political skirmishes, waged on several fronts and seasoned with various turnabouts - the most important of which was the move of Slobodan Milosevic to invite the opposition leaders, for the first time, for consultations and to propose the establishment of a government of national unity - culminated in a three-day debate in the republican parliament which showed that Milosevic had not achieved, with the new elections, what he had publicly presented as the reason for their calling - an assembly worthy of the Serbian people. TV broadcasts of parliamentary debates were once again the high point of the day - for many, a treat only the deputieis could give them. All sorts of things could be heard - who had spent the night with whom and who had seduced his best man's wife in front of her husband, there were different embarrassing and riotous situations, all kinds of threats...

While the better part of the opposition was keen on discrediting the government and its prime minister designate calling it a government of "brotherhood and unity of the Socialists and Communists" (the Radicals), i.e. the "SPS Government seasoned with the New Democracy" (the Democrats) or a government of false national unity which "proves that nothing has changed in Serbia" (SPO), the Socialists and the new Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic insisted that the new cabinet had been formed after negotiations with most of the opposition parties ( the Radicals had not been invited while the DSS refused to take part), - that there was "no alternative" to its programme, that it was oriented towards positive changes in Serbia" and that it was a government of national unity. As if both sides saw their successfulness in convincing the people in the character of the government - a government of genuine or false national unity - as the pledge of their future success.

A New Distribution of Forces

The first idea about a government of national unity originated with the democratic opposition as early as in March 91, when for the first time, during the March demonstrations, the deep division of the population around the basic social values and courses of development of the society was manifested. And every time when Serbia was faced with fateful decisions, the parties of a liberal-democratic orientation suggested to the ruling SPS to adopt a compromise programme with a minimum of common denominators and integrate it with the existing political programme and form a joint government to implement that programme. The Socialists were too superior to agree to such a compromise.

The results of the December 1993 elections, however, showed that that supremacy was no longer absolute. Although changes in public opinion during '93 are designated primarily as the "de-radicalization" of the electorate, expressed in the declining voter support to the nationalist political block (SRS), a part of the votes went to the Socialists also, so that they improved their position in Parliament - the major novelty of the last elections was the ascent of the liberal-democratic block (Depos, DS and DSS). It was of such extent that its representatives, together with SRS deputies could compete with the once inviolable Socialists, and even outvote them together with several deputies from national minority parties ( the Hungarians, Albanians). This outcome, however, remained just a theoretical possibility.

It turned out that it was easier to strike a compromise between the ruling Socialists and part of the opposition, than among the opposition itself. Both in terms of policial platforms, their non-democratic structure and the characters of the leading persons, the opposition parties could not form that decisive joint block with which they could assume the helm. Nor were the Socialists ready to let them do so. In fact, they did everything to prevent them from so doing. One of the instruments employed was the invention of a "government of national unity", with which the SPS turned its defeat at the elections into an important political victory.

At the beginning of the deliberations of the newly elected Parliament, during the voting for the President of the Parliament, it seemed that the stalemate would, if nothing else, cause troubles for the Socialists and force them to exhibit maximum cooperativeness towards the opposition. This could have been deduced from the move of President Milosevic to invite, for the first time during his rule, the opposition leaders to consultations and propose the forming of a Government of national unity. It was soon seen, however, that the Socialists, i.e. the "charming" Milosevic as he was called after these talks by the only half-a-year ago beaten up and imprisoned Vuk Draskovic, were not ready to make any serious concessions because they probably already held their trump card - the minor party New Democracy, which took part in the elections within DEPOS - up their sleeve. Its leader Dusan Mihajlovic, former vice-President of the Republican Government from the pre- pluralist era, agreed, with two of his members (the Vice-President and the Minister of Ecology) to be the "delegate" of national unity in the Socialist Government, securing the votes they needed to be elected.

Milosevic's Prime Minister designate, Mirko Marjanovic, Director of the foreign trade company "Progres", a socialist, a man close to the neo-communists of Dr.Mirjana Markovic, Milosevic's wife, rallied his business associates, directors of large social and private firms around the government of national unity, retained several former Ministers (including Sokolovic, Minister of Police) and managed to "recruit" two prominent officials of the Democratic Party (Djukic and Radulovic) whose (business) interests proved stronger than Party convictions (they had to leave the Party).

The liberal - democratic parties, especially Depos and the Democratic Party were more then ready to break off a chunk of the pie being offered by Milosevic. However, Milosevic was actually offering only a small piece. It led Draskovic to reprimand publicly those who accepted "that little piece": Gentlemen from the Democratic Party and the New Democracy, you sold yourselves too cheaply!" He himself was not, however, in a hurry to expel the New Democracy (whose newly-elected president , to make things even more complicated, is Draskovic's own brother) from Depos.

Tied Steps

Milosevic weighed his moves best of all. Before the Assembly was even constituted and preliminary talks about the Government completed, the implementation started of Avramovic's programme of economic stabilization, made possible by the decrees of the old Government of Sainovic. This new programme, whose application had been exceptionally prepared by the state propaganda machinery managed to restore the stability of the national currency and arrest hyperinflation of record proportions. Only after the programme yielded the initial positive results did the Socialists embark on the forming of the new Government. Milosevic thus scored points both for himself and his Party: they showed themselves to be constructive, the side extending a hand, while the opposition once again demonstrated that it was disunited, preoccupied with itself and politically not up to the situation.

The job of contituting the Government boiled down to a discussion, i.e. an ugly quarrel about the composition of the Cabinet: had the President of the Republic really wanted a government of national unity, at least 16 ministers would have been from the opposition, while the Prime Minister designate would have been a non-party person, claimed the opposition opponents. However, during a three-day Assembly session, the main function of the Assembly was not fulfilled

• a discussion on the Government programme. In fact, the opposition was faced with a fait accompli; by participating in the election of the new government it gave tacit legitimacy to the programme, which it had no chance at all to discuss. Now, its credibility has increased by the insistence of those in power that political consensus, in the form of a government of national unity, had been reached concerning its implementation.

It will be hard for the opposition to refute this. Particularly because it, in fact, has no programme to offer as an alternative to Avramovic's and because there is growing sentiment among the citizens of Serbia that the regime is not the major culprit for the situation in which Serbia has found itself. Namely, according to the research of the Agency "Medijum" conducted in March 1992, 42% of the citizens saw the "leadership of Serbia, headed by Slobodan Milosevic" as the main culprit, while 31% laid the blame on circumstances imposed by foreign powers. In July that year the number of citizens who blamed the regime rose to 44.5%, while in 1993 there was a turnabout : 30% of the citizens of Serbia blamed the leadership of Serbia for the situation, but 35.7% laid the blame at the doorstep of foreign powers which had imposed the sanctions and dictate the behaviour of that leadership.

The success of the new Socialist Government which is, nevertheless, turning out to be a Government of continuity (despite its name), will depend on the success of Avramovic's programme. Still, it has minimum chances of success in a situation of continued sanctions and the war being waged in the neighbourhood. Yet, the secret of success of the new government lies in the unexplained part of its programme in which a "policy of peace" is mentioned which will "contribute to a just solution for the Serbian people in the Republic of Srpska and the Republic of Serbian Krajina".

Jovanka Matic