QUARREL AMONG LEADERS

Differences in Together Coalition

AIM Belgrade, 11 April, 1997

There will soon be elections again in Serbia, and Milosevic seems to be rightfully hoping that time has come for the coalition to at least partly pay him back and express gratitude for everything he has done for them so far by refusing for three months to recognize the victory of the opposition and the results of the local elections. In his ruling party which has lost almost all initiative, it is believed that their only true election trump card is dissolution of the Together coalition. Judging by the vehemence of messages lately exchanged by leaders of the coalition Vuk Draskovic and Zoran Djindjic, both Milosevic and his Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) have plenty of reason to have high hopes.

Disagreements in Together coalition are nothing new and they smouldered even during the protest against the election theft when it seemed that nothing could spoil the opposition idyll. In the past period the smouldering disagreements have developed into open conflicts from the moment when Kragujevac branch of the Serbian Revival Movement (SPO) proposed to put up Draskovic as the coalition presidential candidate. Djindjic's Democrats immediately openly showed that they did not think highly of the proposal. Then a week of foul tongues followed: Danica Draskovic, Vuk's wife, announced the end of the coalition because of Djindjic's disloyalty and revealed that the leader of the Democratic Party met Milosevic in the midst of the protest, in January this year. Then an exchange of fire followed, mutual accusations and suspicions, which was all regularly registered by various newspapers with growing circulation and large titles. In Belgrade, Djindjic said what he thought about "a frog which is shoed and wants to take part in a horse race", from New York (where he participated in the Serbian-Albanian dialogue) Draskovic sent word that his coalition partner was "smartest when he kept silent". After return, at Belgrade airport, he explained that he had hurried back in order to "prevent Djindjic from committing a political suicide". At the same time, Djindjic continued to speak to newspapers that he did not wish to play in a team of losers, and even offered resignation to the post of the mayor of Belgrade if Vuk ceased thinking about his candidacy for president.

Relations in Together coalition reached the point when it seemed that this coalition was not held together even by fine threads of fear of having to bear responsibility for its dissolution. Leader of SPO, Vuk Draskovic, claimed that things had reached the point of "either - or". This practically meant

• either Djindjic and his Democratic Party (DS) would accept the presidential candidate from the SPO (meaning Draskovic) or there would be no coalition.

To a question whether he feared that those who had supported them for months would not have too much understanding for opposition quarrels if the coalition dissolved, President of DS, Zoran Djindjic, answered: "I do not fear maturing, nor the trauma during maturing, but I do fear immaturity in the end. I fear running in the elections unprepared. There is still time to make amendments. Once votes are counted, it is too late for everything. I have no reason to choose the losing combination for the sake of peace in the house".

In his last statement before sitting down at the table with Djindjic and deciding what would happen to the coalition, Vuk Draskovic mentioned four germs which were eating away the coalition. According to him they were: failure to implement the signed coalition agreements, secret negotiations of "certain" coalition partners with Milosevic and the Yugoslav United Left (YUL), influence of marketing agencies and public opinion polls. Instead of the four germs, Djindjic mentioned three possible scenarios: leaders of the coalition rushing hand in hand towards defeat in the coming elections, dissolution of the coalition and everybody continuing on his own, or agreement on a joint strategy.

Joint strategy for Djindjic means that it is still too early to talk about the coalition candidate for president of Serbia. According to his opinion, the regime which controls the most influential media is still capable of making every candidate appear as a caricature, so the Democrats suggest that penetration through the media blockade be the first step and creation of equal election conditions, and later on to determine the candidate and work on his promotion. The SPO, however, refers to world experience in which the name of the candidate is known for months before the elections.

Those who are better acquainted with the relations inside the coalition know that different views of the "timing" of nomination of the presidential candidate and disagreement about the possible sequence of moves are not the true reason why the Together coalition came so close to political bankrupcy at the moment when it seemed that many were ready to invest their votes in it, expecting interest rate in the form of serious democratic changes in Serbia. Mutual mistrust among the coalition partners almost reached the level of paranoia - everyone is controlling everyone else and mutually suspecting the others of being capable to lie and deceive the others. The ones and the others are in fact afraid that their alliance might be just temporary and that the other party could draw from it a greater political profit than the others.

That Draskovic does not have a very high rating among most influential politicians is not completely new. In the past few years Draskovic was also the most satanized Serbian politician. The regime feared him the most and tarnished his reputation with various fabrications and labels, which in conditions of the regime's monolpoly in the media must have left serious scars on his popularity. Along with all that, Draskovic himself, with his passionate insisting on monarchy and Draza Mihajlovic, significantly perevents communication with a significant part of the electorate, which is not a very good starting position for a potential candidate for president of Serbia. That is why the DS insists that a neutral foreign agency examines whether it is worthwhile investing into Draskovic's campaign. They obviously believe that it is not, although a month ago they signed the agreement according to which the SPO is entitled to nominating the presidential candidate. And it should be said what they know now they must have known at the time.

Members of the third coalitiona partner, the Civic Alliance of Serbia (GSS), persistently appeal for pacificartion of passions and keep reminding that people in Serbia did not protest for three months for the sake of satisfying leaders' vanities, but for something incomparably more important. The GSS will support Draskovic's presidential candidacy because it is obliged to do so by the signed coalition agreement, although the impression is that they are doing it with a sincere conviction that this is a safe political investment. Survival and further life of the coalition will greatly depend on the capability of the President of GSS, Vesna Pesic, to convince Djindjic and Draskovic that they are playing their last big match after which they may become part of Serbian history. In the name of the association of deceived walkers, Vesna Pesic could demand urgent convening of some kind of a coalition round table decisions of which would be obligatory. For the beginning, she would agree with Draskovic who claims that the taken obligations must be obeyed, but also with Djindjic who believes that they should not experiment any more, because the coalition was balancing on tightrope without a protective net. Later on she could explain that these two needed not like each other, but had to respect those who were walking with them for a hundred days and enduring blows of police rubber batons, demanding that Serbia finally join countries where the will of the people expressed in elections is respected.

Regardless of the fact that the crisis in Together coalition has largely arisen due to incompatible leaders' vanities and ambitions, it would be incorrect and unjust to bring everything that is happening at the moment down to this dimension only. A part of it should be attributed to a lack of democratic routine among those who had been arousing democratic hopes in the past several months in Serbia.

Nenad Lj. Stefanovic

(AIM)