CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Post-Election Serbia

AIM Belgrade, 27 September, 1997

Presidential and parliamentary elections in Serbia held on 21 September, have shown that majority of the electorate is still not ready for essential political and economic changes and that it still shrinks from clear rejection of conservative and nationalistic - or perhaps more precisely: isolationist - policy of the regime. This "defeatist" isolationism is just the other side of the recent expansionist euphoria: since the bizzare "all-Serb" project with borders along the line drawn between Karlobag - Ogulin - Karlovac - Virovitica experienced the ignominious collapse, there is nothing else left to do but to withdraw and lick one's wounds. That is why the evident decline of the support to the Socialists, the great breakthrough of the Radicals and undeniable shipwreck of the democratic opposition can be interpreted as a specific avoiding of catharsis and refusal to face the causes and results of the destructive policy pursued so far by the regime. Choice of the Radicals is therefore commitment to even braver and faster taking the road to imminent ruin, whatever the cost.

The status of the democratic opposition in the newly created confusion is extremely uncomfortable. One can rightfully say that these elections were lost both for those who have participated in them and those who have not! The Serb Revival Movement (SPO) had enthusiasticly set out in the election campaign, with obvious convinction of its leaders that the civic Serbia had demonstrated for three months last winter only in order to give its votes, honour and power to them. The president of this party and the charismatic leader of Serbian neo-monarchists - whatever that may mean - Vuk Draskovic pompously visited Slobodan Milosevic almost immediately after the latter took over the post of the president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; on the occasion, as Draskovic firmly and unwaveringly believed, fair and honourable election conditions, objectivity of state media and similar were agreed (!)

That is the reason why the SPO agreed to run in the elections, having in this way split and significantly weakened the "anti-election" block of the majority of other parties which belong to the political centre. This party then started on a forceful election campaign using all imaginable means of modern and not so modern political marketing: Draskovic toured the length and breadth of Serbia with his entire suite holding comparatively well visited pre-election rallies; cities of Serbia were covered with posters with Draskovic's face on it and the message "One for All"; Enormous illuminated photo-murals were set up in Belgrade with the same contents by a privately owned marketing agency, and night watchmen were engaged to guard them in order to ensure that political competition, or simply some urban jovial fellow, would not do what is usually done with such "wanted-posters": add a moustache or a beard (which does not apply to Draskovic), satanic horns, black bandage across one eye, blacken his teeth, "instal" moles, put earrings, draw swastikas, five-pointed red stars and similar... the ruffled president of the SPO even agreed to have his hair and his beard considerably shortened in order to resemble as much as possible an ordinary, conventional politician, and at the same time retain those who like him for his customary bearing and style. Draskovic gave tall promises about "spring which will come to Serbia in the night between 21 and 22 September", but obviously this time, for a change, Serbia has decided not to go against the rest of the world, so that we will have autumn after all...

Little was left of the thunderous rhetoric of the Serb Revival Movement in the night after closing down of the polls, so that the election headquarters after midnight asked the journalists to go home and rest, and said that the next day everything would be much clearer... At the seat of the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) it was not much merrier, although the spokesman of this party Ivica Dacic tried hard to convince at least himself that this party and its coalition partners (Yugoslav Left and New Democracy) had registered another unprecedented victory, although it was quite clear that they were in fact far from the planned objectives: their presidential candidate Zoran Lilic was very far from the victory in the first round, and the coalition lacks no less than 16 seats for the majority in the assembly; this means that it will have to share power with one or two large opposition parties which might mean that it will have to make significant concessions. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that after these, such as they were, elections, the regime is truly and directly threatened only by the Serb Radical Party of Vojislav Seselj and that the democratic opposition was run to the ground. Serious analysts claim that the SPO will never recover from such rash agreeing to run in the elections lost in advance, which sounds rational, although surprises are possible - but with much more reliability it is possible to claim that statesman's ambitions of Vuk Draskovic are lost for good.

The Democratic Party and other parties from the "anti-election block" have not profitted from the failure of the SPO, because their boycott was also a failure, at least if the criterion were the number of voters who had appeared at the polls. If legitimacy of these elections were not seriously questioned from within or from without, these parties will be nothing but non-parliamentary opposition for a long time to come, which means that they will also be pushed to the margins and reduced to debating clubs of dissidents, out of which their leaders had entered party politics when Serbia had set out on its way to multipartism. That is how this paradoxical situation came about in which almost all political parties are losers, and only the Serb Radical Party and its leader, violent and shallow but endlessly skillful demagogue Vojislav Seselj won much more than they had ever had, and who are at this moment holding the key to power in Serbia. The second round of the elections is on 5 October, and nobody should be surprised if the eloquent Seselj wins the mildly speaking unconvincing Zoran Lilic, political "stuffed bird" whose only task is to be the formal governor of Serbia in the name of its true Master - Slobodan Milosevic.

The democratic opposition of all colours and variants let its historic chance to defeat the regime of Slobodan Milosevic slip by last winter and spring, and now it is just making amends for this sin; being thrown down on their knees they are finding strength only for gossiping each other, mutual accusations and putting spokes in each other's wheels, a new episode of which is marked by relieving of duty the Democratic mayor of Belgrade Zoran Djindjic and most probably that of Nis Zoran Zivkovic by the new unformal coalition SPS-SPO-(SRS)! The Democrats will return the blow by lobbying in favour of relieving of duty the mayor of Novi Sad who is a member of the SPO and so on and so forth, to the joy and benefit of the Socialists and the Radicals.

History teaches us that fatal political mistakes and failures are paid for dearly and repented for years, even decades; football teaches us that a missed hundred-per-cent chance is usually punished by receiving a badly planned goal. Leaders of the Serbian democratic opposition obviously have neither learnt their lesson in history, nor do they watch football games.

Teofil Pancic

(AIM)