"REVOLUTION OF SCRAMBLED EGGS" AND GREAT PLUNDER OF THE NATION

How the Socialist Stole Votes

AIM Belgrade, 27 November, 1996

Why is everything possible in the country in which proclamation of the Constitution which has not come into force even after four years, is celebrated as the state holiday. Hundred and fifty thousand citizens of Belgrade are waiting for the next move of the Big Brother - Milosevic. Hundreds of candles in Kragujevac symbolically marked the death of judiciary, and according to the announcement of the leader of the opposition coalition "Together", the same will be done in Nis and Belgrade, where after the second round of the local elections, as they say, "the unprecedented in history, state and legal terrorism occurred by means of which the opposition was robbed of its two-thirds victory".

Courts in the Service of Politics

Dut to unprecedented re-shaping of election results in all the large cities of Serbia, for days, even in the pouring rain, tens thousand citizens are protesting, in the past two days joined by the students of the University in Belgrade and Nis. At the same time, electoral commissions and municipal courts are proclaiming new results which nullify the opposition victory, and the night before the so-called third round of the elections, the last hope of supporters of the opposition disappeared after the verdict of the Supreme Court of Serbia.

The verdict of the Supreme Court of Serbia, rejected demands of the coalition "Together" to repeal verdicts of the First Municipal Court in Belgrade based on which decisions were made to repeat elections for a portion of councillors of the Assembly of the City of Belgrade, as well as the demand of the coalition "Together" to ban repeated elections. "The Supreme Court put itself completely in the service of politics which is forging the election will of the citizens. By rejecting the documentation which proves that the Municipal Court has quite illegally nullified the elections, the Supreme Court showed that it was not an independent judicial agency, but participates in the theft and fraud", said immediately after the verdict was publicized, one of the leaders of the coalition "Together" and President of the Democratic Party (DS) Zoran Djindjic, and then added: "After this, protests of the citizens acquire an additional sense, and the opposition can do nothing but resort to extra-institutional struggle and to increasing pressure".

The legal council of the coalition "Together" will also make the last remaining move, as said in the latest statement, by instigating criminal charges against "a large number of people, participants in electoral manipulations and malpractice, which should lead them to jail"! According to what has been happening in the past ten days and that which induced the professor of Belgrade Law School, Gaso Knezevic, to conclude that in Serbia "jurisprudence has become the oldest trade in the world (prostitution) with the red lantern hanging over it", for an ordinary citizen it is difficult to imagine that this will actually happen.

The Constitution and the laws in Serbia are permanently violated in different ways, and one of the most obvious ones is (ab)use of electronic media and the press with high circulation, which is controlled and completely closed to the opposition by the ruling party. Nevertheless, few could have anticipated that things would go that far that the regime would dare jeopardize the divine "franchise which is guaranteed by the Constitution and law". After ten post-election days, professor of the Law School in Belgrade and member of the Federal Electoral Commission, Vesna Rakic-Vodinelic could do nothing but conclude: "The old rule which was adopted by our modern legal system is: nobody shall draw privileges from his own abuses, and if he attempts to do it, he shall be prevented by the competent agency. The competent agencies (electoral commissions) have not only refused to prevent this abuse, but even stimulated it in a great number of cases".

Scialists Shocked

The turmoil which has hit Serbia could not be anticipated even on the day of the second round of the elections, 17 November, when all the state-controlled media, especially TV Serbia, reported about exceptionally well-organized elections, about a positive climate which accompanied them, and carried statements of presidents of polling boards about absence of any irregularity. In the night of the great surprise, even the leaders of the ruling party were caught unprepared which became evident when after the initial results about the victory of the opposition, they could not conceal their shock in the presence of the journalists who were in their election headquarters, but could do nothing but, just an hour after they had scheduled a press conference, ask the journalists to leave their premises and come the next day.

The omnipresent doubt that the Socialist would easily surrender power did not prevent numerous supporters of the opposition in all the cities where the results of the elections indicated transfer of power to go out into the streets and share joy with other like-minded citizens. It turned out, however, that the "rallies of victory" had already ended when, after an exceptionally tumultous session of the Main Board of the Socialists Party of Serbia (SPS), as claimed by reliable sources, President of Serbia, but also of the ruling party, Slobodan Milosevic, offered his men the last opportunity to save little what there is to save. The statement of the spokesman of SPS Ivica Dacic given only to the state news agency TANJUG that "nobody is a winner until official results are publicized" was the shot which marked the start of a post election circus the world has never seen before. Media close to the regime after a short interruption resumed their basic role of anti-opposition shaping of the public opinion and emitting signals to those institutions whose "correct" activity was expected. Therefore, the first to act were electoral commissions of the largest and indeed most important cities - Belgrade and Nis, although the list soon extended to include somewhat smaller but not less significant cities of Kragujevac, Kraljevo, Uzice, Jagodina, Pirot.

Post-Election Farce

The alarm for the opposition was sounded first on the municipal level. For ten days, the opposition has not received official decisions, but information arrived about numerous complaints addressed from the SPS or, to be more precise, by representatives of this party who, for the sake of the law, appeared as citizens who have subsequently observed errors in the election procedure. This was done because official representatives of the parties, before the defeat of the Socialists in the largest cities of Serbia became known, had in an orderly manner and without any complaints signed the official minutes. "It was impossible for the opposition to learn what was actually happening, so it tried to get to the bottom of things by means of personal connections, and in order to find out decisions of the electoral commissions, representatives of the opposition had to peep through windows from ladders in order to find out what was going on inside", prof. Dr. Dragor Hiber testifies and at the same time concludes that such behavior of the competent agencies is direct violation of the legal principle according to which the other party must be given an opportunity to participate in the procedure. "At the same time this shows that the state-controlled television even when it stated that the 'coalition Together has not issued a statement' once again deceived the public", says Hiber.

According to the principle of a snowball rolling downhill, things started to complicate and, at the same time, became more and more incredible. The example of one of the central Belgrade municipalities - Savski venac - is highly illustrative. This municipality is in the jurisdiction of the Second Municipal Court which reached the decision to repeat the elections altogether. Mass nullificatioon of the elections also occurred in other municipalities which are specially important fro the authorties, such as, for example, Palilula, where along with numerous banking institutions, Radio Television Serbia is located.

As the most frequent reason for nullification of election results "excess of ballots" was mentioned, which pursuant the law on these election - the Law on Local Self-Administration, would not be contestible. The manner in which this excess appeared, however, is contenstible. The polling boards had not observed this phenomenon and minutes were duly signed without any complaints, but the excess appeared later on, on the way between municipal and city boards. Since on this way boxes were not in the jurisdiction of the opposition members of the board, it is clear that the other, ruling party, is responsible for its appearance. The electoral commissions (especially in Nis) failed to act pursuant the law not even after the excess of ballots was determined, because instead to nullify the elections or dissolve the polling boards, they just altered and determined the results!!! In a large number of polling stations, when it was established that the result was unfavourable for the ruling party, minutes "disappeared", and electoral commissions nullified the results although copies of the minutes existed and they are legally as valid as the originals. It is important to note that the electoral commissions have not initiated criminal proceedings against those who had allegedly lost the minutes!

The fact is also appaling that despite political pressures, the courts did not know what they were expected to do, that is pursuant which legal procedure they were expected to make decisions concerning the complaints: at first it was said that the Law on Legal Proceedings would be implemented, but then the Law on Extrajudicial Procedure and Law on Administrative Procedure were also mentioned. And while the citizens are just confused by this and feel unprotected because of it, lawyers know that the type of legal remedy depends on the type of the implemented procedure, and that in this case nothing was certain.

It sounds unbelievable that the Socialists, who had controlled all electoral commissions, after the second round of the local elections, submitted as many as 461 complaints. And it is even more improbable that all objections submitted in these cities in which the opposition won, and that the commissions and the courts accepted two thirds of the complaints!

In Nis, where after long lasting workers' strikes, despite unquestioned previous domination of the Socialists, the opposition could have hoped for good results, the situation was on the verge of a conflict even during the voting. According to numerous testimonies of the citizens of Nis, local Socialist "boss" Mile Ilic sent kick-boxers to the polling stations, and representatives of the opposition were not allowed to be members of the electoral comissions. Therefore, strikes marked even the day of the elections in Nis, but after the oppositionists fought for and won their place by the polling boxes, the problem seemed to have been resolved. It proved - not for long. By rapid decisions, first the electoral commissions reduced 41 mandates won by the coalition "Together" down to 29, or exactly as many as the "leftist forces" had won, but then the municipal court literally overnight, nullified these results and at dawn announced victory of the Socialists and made it public that the SPS won 37 mandates, and that for another nine councillors the elections would be repeated.

At the rally in Nis, President of the Serbian Revival Movement (SPO) and one of the leaders of the coalition "Together", Vuk Draskovic, assessed that "forgery of the will of the voters is a criminal act which threatens public interest and the state", and that "those who are so rudely forging results are provoking revolution". And the method which was applied was the following: electoral commission of Nis, for instance, first reached the decision to nullify voting for the mandate won in preliminary results by the President of the Nis Board of the DS, Zoran Zivkovic, because, as written in the explanation, there had been "certain irregularities", and then the next day, the court decided that the winner in that electoral unit was in fact the candidate of the SPS. To a question how something like this was possible, not even the most eminent legal experts could answer. Professor Gaso Knezevic claims that there has been no such case in the history of jurisprudence and adds: "Not only does every layman know that this procedure is a farce, it can immediately be seen that 'certain irregularities' is a legally untenable formulation, because without precise description of irregularities it is impossible to provide counter-evidence. The other part - alteration of the verdict, does not exist in the Law on Local Self-Administration as a possibility, and therefore it is pure science fiction".

With (Rotten) Eggs Against Rotters

The situation was not less extraordinary in Belgrade either. The city Electoral Commissions needed 24 hours to examine all the complaints for the first (in alphabetical order) of the 16 Belgrade municipalities, which caused the opposition supporters and the leaders of the coalition "Together" to come to the city Assembly straight from the celebrating rally, the whole crowd of them, and see for themselves what was in fact happening over there. Apart from an unpleasant conversation and a lot of chanting, no other results were accomplished. And just as it seemed that everything would end with nullification of 10 mandates won by the coalition "Together", which still meant two-thirds majority (ratified 60 out of 110 seats) for it, a new shower of complaints followed, addressed also to municipal courts and, it proved, justified fear that there was no end to altering of the election results.

Trying to "turn on the light in the room (Serbia) where the theft was taking place", the opposition called its voters to protest gatherings as a sign of warning, causing among socialists just a single reaction. Soon it became known that nullification spread in the capital, and a session of the Republican parliament was convened at which, according to general estimate, many laws will be amended in order to further centralize power, that is, deprive the local administrative agencies of all power.

Faced with such a situation, citizens of Nis, but also other cities in Serbia where the opposition had won and from where news were also arriving that election results were nullified, a series of protest gatherings continued. This specific flame quickly spread in Belgrade where protest gatherings of tens thousand citizens of Belgrade after just one night replaced the initial festivity. Led by leaders of the coalition "Together", 66 deputies of the parties of the coalition started a strike in the building of the Assembly of Serbia. They leave it only in order to join the everyday protest walk through the city. When it became clear on the third day of the strike that not even the 60 mandates confirmed by the city electoral commission were certain any more, President of the DS, Zoran Djindjic said to journalists: "I fear that with this regime, this country can lose everything, and not just that the opposition might lose local power, and that is the reason why I have slept for three nights already on assembly chairs".

Reliable information (because there were still no official decisions) a few days later proved that fear, at least as concerning local elections, was justified. Municipal courts in Belgrade have also completed that which was started by the electoral commissions, and it was all finally confirmed by the Supreme Court of Serbia. After all the verdicts, out of the 60 confirmed mandates, 33 were nullified, and in this was in just a few days, by means of conjuring tricks, from victors, the opposition was instantly turned into almost certain losers.

That is the reason which brought about the greatest protest gathering in Belgrade, not only in relation to the protest of 9 March '91, but also, as historians claim, in relation to the pre-war rejection of the pact with fascist Germany on 27 March 1941. More than 150 thousand citizens expressed their protest by demonstrating against this decision and shouting slogans: "Red robbers", "Thieves, thieves", but also by bombing buildings of all prominent institutions with eggs, due to which these protests acquired the name "revolution of scrambed eggs".

After all these developments, not only are the cynical analysts amazed, because, as they observe, in a country in which celebrates the day of proclamation of the federal Constitution which even after four years since its proclamation (due to incompatibility of the republican constitutions with it) has not come into force - everything is possible! Even the fact that Serbia has not even in 1996 reached that which Orwell had described in his catastrophic "1984": "Freedom is freedom to say that two plus two are four. If that is given, everything else will come spontaneously". Hundreds thousand citizens in the streets here are still waiting for the next move of the loacl Big Brother!

(AIM) Bojana Lekic