WHAT DO SERB PARTIES IN RS HAVE TO OFFER?
AIM Banja Luka, July 6, 1996
Seven political parties and two coalition blocks - Alliance for Peace and Progress (SZMP) and the Democratic Patriotic Block (DPB) - have applied to the regional Centre of OSCE in Banja Luka and filed lists of candidates in the forthcoming presidential and parliamentary elections in the Republic of Srpska (RS) and the Federation B&H.
The most dramatic fact about the usual pre-election procedure was that, contrary to all forecasts, expectations and announcements, the two coalition blocks proposed separate candidates for president of the RS. Only two days before the lists were submitted it was announced, though unoficially, that the SZMP and the DPB would jointly support the candidacy of the leader of the Democratic Patriotic Block, Predrag Radic, for president of the RS. In the last minute, however, the SZMP declared that it would file the candidacy of Zivko Radisic, president of the Socialist Party of RS (SP RS) for president. The SZMP is a block of related political parties headed by SP RS. The Party of Independent Social Democrats of the RS (SN RS), the Social Liberal Party (SLS), the Yugoslav United Left (JUL), and the New Workers' Party of the RS (NRP RS) form the block along with the Socialists.
Instead of the expected support of the SZMP, candidacy of Predrag Radic, the current mayor of Banja Luka, was supported "only" by his own Democratic Patriotic Block formed of the Democratic Party with its seat in Bijeljina, the Party of Democratic Centre (SDC) from Trebinje, the People's Radical Party "Nikola Pasic" from Banja Luka, the Peasants' and Workers' Party with the seat in Bosanska Dubica (Kozarska Dubica in "new Serb") and the Fatherland Party from Banja Luka.
Lists of presidential candidates and candidates for deputies in the Assembly of RS and the joint chamber of representatives in the Federation were filed also by the Serb Radical Party (SRS), the Serb Party of Krajina (SSK), the Party of Serb Unity (SSJ), the Serb Peasants' Party (SSS), the Serb Patriotic Party (SPAS), the Radical Fatherland Front "Nikola Pasic" and the National Party of the RS (NS RS).
Diversity of political life and pluralism of parties which appeared in the political sky of the Republic of Srpska in the post-Dayton period seriously warns the analysts and connoisseurs of the necessity to revise all former knowledge of the organization of political life.
But, when speaking of the criteria of the relation towards the authorities in the Republic of Srpska, everything is quite clear. During the entire war, one and one only party was in power - the Serb Democratic Party (SDS). The Serb Party of Serb Lands, as its full name reads, according to numerous criteria ranks first in the RS. It is the only party which can be said to have "large membership" without causing sneers. According to allegations of some of the leaders of the SDS, the leading party in the RS should have more than a hundred thousand members, although the assessment that there are about 80 thousand is more realistic. Apart from that, the SDS is the only typical party of one leader, since its inviolable leader, Dr Radovan Karadzic, at the second convention of the party on June 28 this year, was elected president for the second time, despite accusations for war crimes. Besides, it is the only party from the family of the so-called large parties in the RS which are autochthonous and authentic political organizations from the space of the RS, or Bosnia & Herzegovina. It has no headquarters in Belgrade - although its leaders often go there to be told what to do - but its seat is in "Serb Sarajevo" (!?), i.e. in Pale, which is another thing that makes it an exception, since all the other relevant parties of the RS have their seats in Banja Luka. Concerning the national issue, this party firmly persists on total and final separation from the state community with the other two nations in B&H. It is in favour of independence of the RS and union with the parent country - Serbia, regardless of the cost, even if it means fighting to the last Serb.
According to their large membership and organization, next to the SDS are the Socialist Party of the Republic of Srpska and the Serb Radical Party of the RS. Apart from the ruling party, these two are the only ones which have organized municipal committees in all municipalities of the RS, which is evident from the fact that they have candidates running in the forthcoming September elections in all the municipalities. They both have seats in Banja Luka, but their heads in Belgrade.
As it was said a month ago at the first convention of the SP RS in Banja Luka, this party has about 40 thousand members, and its leaders stress that this number constantly increases. The SP RS was founded during the war, in midst 1993, and it belongs to the group of left-oriented parties. At the mentioned convention, the party elected Zivko Radisic its first president, a calm politician of the old stamp, one of the rare current party leaders who has certain previous political experience. At the post of the president of the party, he replaced the founder of the party, the strutting Dr Dragutin Ilic, radical leftist and uncompromising critic of the ruling party and the regime in the RS. This party lives more off charisma, assistance and support of the President of Serbia Slobodan Milosevic than its program and objectives it advocates. In respect to national aspirations, the SP RS is in favour of union with Serbia and Montenegro, but not at all cost and against the will of the international political factors. It, therefore, does not eliminate connection to the Federation B&H, but considers it to be temporary and transitional.
In organizing the coalition SZMP, this party has lent some of its reputation and power to its coalition partners. That is how among those who can count on winning the number of votes necessary to ensure seats in the parliament of the RS are the Independent Social Democrats of the RS, who emerged from the former Club of Independent Deputies in the RS Assembly, headed by the current leader of this party Milorad Dodik. Dodik's Social Democrats have managed to establish organizations in 32 municipalities and to collect about 7,500 members. Thanks to the coalition SZMP, as of this autumn, the Social Liberal Party of RS, headed by Dr Miodrag Zivanovic, can also count on obtaining the status of a parliamentary party, as the only party with a "purely" civic orientation and pre-war continuity and experience in the work of Banja Luka "parliament". Also with the help of the coalition, united Leftists will also probably win the status of a parliamentary party.
Contrary to the SP RS which is not impatient concerning union with the "parent" country, the Serb Radical Party of RS, headed by Prof. Dr Nikola Poplasen, is in favour of the most urgent union with Serbia, whatever it may cost. The main obstacle for it, according to its members, is Slobodan Milosevic himself, who they say, after the mythic traitor Vuk Brankovic, is the greatest traitor of Serbdom.
The Radicals show a tendency towards internal divisions, so another two radical parties were created in this way. Back in 1993, National Radical Party "Nikola Pasic" was founded from a faction of this party, and then Radical Party "Nikola Pasic" was founded in the second half of 1995, headed by Banja Luka oil dealer Branko Djukic, a man who publicly brags that he has not even regularly completed elementary school.
One of the youngest parties in the RS - the Serb Party of Krajina - was also founded by dissidents and "renegades" of the SRS. Its leader is Professor Predrag Lazarevic, an intellectual quite highly reputable even outside Banja Luka, who is also the son of the last governor ("ban") of Vrbaska banovina. This party operates on regional principles, it is in favour of RS as a republic of regions, and therefore, often accused of Krajina secessionism. It considers itself to be a party of rightist centre, equally nationally and civic-society oriented.
In the same manner, through "heretical division", yet another party was founded - the National Party of the RS, this time by the excommunicated member of the SDS, Radoslav Brdjanin, former deputy, minister and vice prime minister of RS and Milan Trbojevic, also a former deputy and minister in the government. Along with them there are several other former members of the SDS some of whom were expelled from it, and some, dissatisfied with treatment and personal status in the SDS, went over to the party which christened itself the "party of justice and truth". They are a party of rightist centre, in favour of a union with Serbia, but they recognize the reality of "Dayton Bosnia".
The closest to them, although designated as a "party of the centre and the Serb combatants", is the Serb Patriotic Party (SPAS), whose president is engineer Slavko Zupljanin. Although there are branches of this party both in Pale and in Trebinje, Zvornik and Bijeljina, it mostly "gravitates" towards Krajina. According to its members, Dayton accords mark a minimum of Serb interests and reintegration into B&H is completely out of the question.
The election coalition Democratic Patriotic Block is formed of five political parties which, according to the previously differentiated criteria of classification of parties in Western European political tradition, could be classified into so-called small parties - none of them has party organization and "infrastructure" even in one third of the territory of RS, and as parties of the centre, although some of their leaders and important officials are some white-hot nationalists and people who would have great difficulties if they had to explain the origin of their property in any state of law, and even greater difficulties if they had to justify some of their "heroic" deeds in the past war.
The main force and at the same time the weakness of this block is in the fact that its coordinator, and presidential candidate, Mr Predrag Radic, has much more respectability, charisma and authority than the parties united in the block can provide him with support. True enough, Radic's credibility is not as great as presented in some Yugoslav and other media and "political circles", but it is undoubtedly greater than that of any other "leader" of individual parties of the block and all of them put together.
The other central figure of the coalition, Prof. Dr Mladen Ivanic, is a politician with respectability and experience (he used to be the youngest member of the Presidency of SR B&H), so that mildly speaking, it may cause confusion among a part of the electorate that two very strong man have agreed to lead the block of unrespectable parties.
But, this of course is not the only reason why the analysts and connoisseurs of the science on politics must reexamine their former knowledge of political organizing.
ENTREFILET:
Candidates
The candidate of the SZMP for vice-president of the RS is a Socialist Nedjo Djuric, and the leading name on the list of candidates for deputies of the National Assembly of RS is Dr Dragutin Ilic. Member of the SNS, Branko Djokic is heads the list of candidates of the SZMP for the future parliament of B&H, and Professor Mladen Ivanic is the candidate for Presidency of B&H. He is the only person whose candidacy will be supported by both opposition blocks. The SLS of Miodrag Zivanovic has no candidate for the highest posts in the state and the parliament in RS and B&H. The name of the leader of SNS Milorad Dodik is not on the list either, nor is the president of JUL for RS Mile Ivosevic, nor any member from the NRS RS. All parties members of the block will have representatives in the lists of registered candidates for the Parliament of RS and the Chamber of Representatives of B&H.
The candidate of the Serb Patriotic Party for president is retired general Slavko Lisica, for vice- president is Koja Garic, and for member of the Presidency of B&H Milivoj Zaric. The SRS had no candidate for the President of the RS, but its candidate for vice-president is Nikola Spiric.
(AIM) Nemanja Stefanovic