RACE FOR MONEY AND POWER

Election Postcard of Banja Luka

AIM Banja Luka, 20 June, 1997

The forthcoming local elections in Banja Luka will be remembered by a large number of political parties, coalitions and independent candidates who will participate in the race for seats in the city parliament. More than thirty parties and coalitions have submitted lists of candidates for the municipal, i.e. the city assembly. Banja Luka is the biggest city in RS and the city with the longest political tradition, so this fact deserves special attention.

Parties which have registered for local elections in Banja Luka can be classified in a few groups. The first would include parties with the longest life. The oldest is the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), headed by the "candidate number two", Dr Branislav Lolic, instead of Ostoja Knezevic, after he had been punished by the OSCE. Along with the SDS, there is the Socialist Party of RS, represented by Nebojsa Radmanovic, president of the city organization ever since its foundation. Among the oldest are two former member parties of the Democratic Patriotic Block which are running in the local elections independently: the National Radical Party "Nikola Pasic" with its president Dubravko Prstojevic on the top of the list of candidates, and the Fatherland Party (developed from the Serb Democratic Alliance - Fatherland Front) headed by Prof. Nikola Sevo. In the group of the oldest parties is also the Serb Radical Party, the first candidate of which is Dr Svetozar Radulovic, the candidate for the same post in the elections which were not held in September last year. The Serb Patriotic Party which has also retained its first candidate, Ilija Lukic, is also in this group.

It is possible to classify a few left-oriented parties in this group as well, primarily the Yugoslav Leftists for RS, which has formed a coalition together with the League of Communists - Movement for Yugoslavia and the Federal Party of Yugoslavs. Predrag Radulovic is the first on the list of this coalition for Banja Luka. The group of the left parties also includes the Socialist Workers' Party of Yugoslavia, which exists for quite some time but is not known much in public and had no opportunity to participate in the elections so far. It is headed by Savo Kapisoda. The New Communist Party of Radovan Bijelic also belongs in this list. The head of the New Communists is Vlado Kecman, script writer of numerous partisan films. There is also the Social Liberal Party headed by Miodrag Zivanovic who is also the first candidate on the list for Banja Luka. This party which used to be called Liberal Party - League of Socialist Youth, had representatives in the assembly since the previous elections.

The Party of Serb Unity, which was not successful in the last elections and which is headed by Pero Tadic in Banja Luka, can also be classified among the "old" parties. This party has in fact been dissolved but a few municipal organizations have decided to run in the elections under this name. The Party of Social Progress has also existed for a long time, although it is of no importance, but persistently participates in all elections since 1990 thanks to its president and first candidate on the list Obrad Milidrag.

In the transitional group, from the aspect of duration of existence, is the List for Banja Luka. It is formed of the Party of Independent Social Democrats of Milo Dodik, founded on the eve of previous elections (it has one representative in the parliament of RS and one in that of B&H), then there is the slightly "older" National Party of Radoslav Brdjanin, founded after this former deputy left the SDS, and the quite "fresh" Democratic Party for Banja Luka and Krajina which was founded just a few months ago by Nikola Spiric, after he had left the Serb Radical Party. The first on the list "For Banja Luka" formed by these three parties is the lawyer Krstan Simic. This renowned Banja Luka lawyer was a member of the defence team in the beginning of the trial to Dusko Tadic at the Hague Tribunal.

The second group of parties is formed of those founded for the last year's September presidential and parliamentary elections. One of them is the Serb Party of Krajina (it later added "of Posavina" to its name) which succeeded in winning one deputy seat in the last elections. The first on the municipal list is Dr Dusko Jaksic. Last year this party expressed much higher ambitions for the municipal than the republican elections. The Democratic Patriotic Party of the former mayor and presidential candidate Predrag Radic (he is the first candidate on the list) also belongs in this group. It was forced to give up the name of the coalition Democratic Patriotic Block due to the changed internal structure after the block had been abandoned by majority of parties. The Radical Fatherland Front "Nikola Pasic", with journalist Bogdan Ristic at the head of its list for Banja Luka, was founded a year ago. The New Workers' Party also belongs to this group, which is still a member of the parliamentary coalition of the Alliance for Peace and Progress, the president of which, Vinko Djuragic, is at the same time the first candidate on the list. There is also the Serb Peasants' Party which was not successful in the parliamentary elections.

The third group of parties are those founded just recently and practically for the forthcoming local elections. They are by far the most numerous, because it is enabled by OSCE regulations. A party may be founded by only two persons, and for participation in the local elections it is sufficient to provide 200 signatures of the voters, and it is enough to have a single candidate for the list. Some of them have known names for their candidates. The first candidate on the list of the Party of Banja Luka Centre is Rajko Kasagic, and Vojo Kupresanin has founded the Serb Fatherland Front, the candidate of which in Banja Luka is also a deputy from the first assembly of RS Zlatko Kelecevic. The Party of Education and Health and the Independent Party are quite anonymous. The party called Democratic Revival of Srpska, headed by Milan Gvozdenovic also exists since recently. The first on its list of candidates is Milorad Maksimovic.

It is quite certain that a number of political parties with the seat in B&H Federation will also participate in the local elections in Banja Luka. It is already known that the list of the Croat Democratic Community, like in the cancelled last year's September elections, will be headed by Ivica Juric. The coalition called Integral Democratic B&H from Sarajevo has also registered for participation in the forthcoming elections.

There are another fifteen parties, mostly recently founded the names of whose presidents and the first candidates have not been made public yet.

Indeed, the lists have not been officially published. The fact that there are precisely a hundred parties and coalitions on the list for local elections and that 150 independent candidates have registered testify about the still unexperienced attractions of democracy.

Majority of registered parties for the elections are in fact undefined organizations with no clearly stated objectives and programs. Perhaps those critics are quite right who claim that majority of the parties have been founded by capable managers who count on the money allocated by the OSCE and that it was their only aim to receive this money.

Majority of the parties which truly intend to fight for power represent groups of people who simply believe that they can replace the present leadership and take their place, without any serious intention to change anything. The fact that most of them have absolutely no chance of even getting near to this goal may very well be both a fortunate and unfortunate circumstance.

All things considered, the current repositories of power in RS (SDS) stand a chance to win majority of posts in Banja Luka assembly, too. The Socialist Party and the Serb Radical Party can join then in it. These are organizations with the longest life and exoperience in RS, but also with the best developed infrastructure and somewhat established and balanced political approach in local environments. They also participate in the main distribution of posts in the parliament of RS. The others may win a post or two here and there, but with no possibility to have any major influence.

In the political sense, it is difficult to speak about differentiated parties. The only possible division is into leftist parties, although there are major differences among them, and the centre-rightist ones, which are approximately the same. Among some sixty odd parties just in RS, half of which are in Banja Luka, it is very difficult to seek an attempt of qualification according to world models. This is price of children's diseases of democracy which obviously has to be paid.

Dejan Novakovic