STRATEGY OF MUDDY SHOES

SDS in the Elections

>From the last year's victorious slogan "We Won, We Go On", the SDS has come down to the desperate "Survive, Survive, Survive"

AIM Banja Luka, 12 November, 1997

Whether the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) will perish in the elections is the question put in Republica Srpska more often by optimists than by realists, which shows that the issue has not matured yet. Because, although after seven years of ruling - during which all those who have not become rich have become terribly poor - this party has come to the verge of an abyss, with just slight exaggeration one could also say that everything that has weakened the SDS has at the same time strengthened its internal organization and mobilized its remaining membership.

First, the attack of President Biljana Plavsic on the state crime committed under control of the ruling party, did thin out the ranks oft he SDS, but at the same time sobered up those who have remained and made them realize that after the elections they will be either in power or in jail. And from the point of view of pre-election motivation this is not insignificant. Loss of control over the state tv network did leave Krajisnik and Buha without the picture by means of which they had brought into each and every Serb home optimism created by a pervert symbiosis of journalists' commentaries and distortion of facts which made every tv-spectator feel that he lived at least slightly better than he actually did. But this loss has dragged the SDS from the decadent nonchalance of a ruling party out from the offices into the field where most of the votes are won, at least when the Serbs are concerned. Besides, the slightly less time on state television for the authorities from Pale has been compensated for by a pre-election propaganda spot from the High Representative's Office - which, from the vocabulary to the even, unemotional voice which explains to the Serbs that Momo was insolent, resembles mostly films about partisans in which the chief of the Gestapo appeals through a loud-speaker to the freedom-loving Serbs to be loyal. The whole affair is abundantly adorned by Carlos Westendorp who in every daily order issues an ultimatum to Krajisnik so that it is a true miracle that it has not yet occurred to the SDS, with its proverbial sense for historic comparisons to compare the whole affair with the fifty local inhabitants shot for a single killed German soldier in Kragujevac in 1941.

After the first shock, therefore, the SDS has managed to pull itself together as much as possible. Its members have not yet restored the old self-confidence, though. This is best illustrated by the sentence uttered by a hard-core SDS member from Pale: "If Biljana's men knew what chaos we are in, they would have collected us with a spade." The fact that gives the special taste to things is that the disposition among "Biljana's" men is similar. Due to all that, the pre-election presentation of the SDS will be based on linking the network of municipal radio-stations which will carry news from the "central brain" in Pale, the main creators of which will be the state news agency SRNA and propaganda headquarters headed by the dismissed director of Serb Radio-Television Miroslav Toholj.

For the whole project, the well-informed claim, some money has arrived from Serbia, the regime of which from the promiscuity, seems to be entering the phase of the sweetest - secret love affair with Pale. They have therefore decided in Pale that until the elections all leading personages would have to have muddy shoes touring all local radio-stations and every village in RS convincing the people that America had just about been ready to dissolve Bosnia and annex RS to Serbia when Biljana Plavsic appeared and ruined the arrangement.

As the pre-election platform, the first issue of Glasnik of the SDS was printed in Pale, and it is being disseminated as a pamphlet under the apocalyptic title "Survive, Survive, Survive". The main thesis launched in Glasnik is that the opposition is treacherous, that it follows only regional interests, that it informs the Hague Tribunal about the hard-core Serbs, that dollars are more important for them than freedom and independence, and about themselves they say: "We have not made a single strategic or tactical mistake, although on the political and wartime level almost the whole world was against us". They devoted the same space to the logical explanation of this sentence as to crime. That is, not a word. Judging by the tone of a decisive battle which prevails in Glasnik, connoisseurs believe that it was written by Radovan Karadzic himself, while those who recognize the strong epic literary charge in the text believe that it is the work of Miroslav Toholj.

Be what may, SDS is entering the campaign in conditions which it could have never expected, but with unconscious help of the international community which believes that frustration of the Serb electorate originates rather from an empty stomach than the complex because of the lost war. This complex could be decisive for winning the elections. This means that SDS and the opposition parties will fight the biggest battle for "historic truth" about the past war. The one who finds a better excuse for the lost war and be sufficiently convincing in refusing to admit that it was lost will be able to count on the majority of undecided voters.

That is the reason why it is rightfully believed that SDS still has the best chances in the elections. This, of course, does not mean that the ruling party can count on winning simple majority of the votes, but it could get close to it with a little bit of luck and together with the Radicals, who, like in Serbia, are appearing as the postwar trauma personalized in fierce Serbs who are offering the voters some kind of euthanasia. The remainder of the votes will be divided between the Serb opposition and the parties from the Federation which expect to win the necessary twenty per cent of the seats in the parliament. Among the opposition, the top post is held by the Serb National Union of Biljana Plavsic which does not manifest the tenth part of the "motive force" possessed by its leader. This means that if this ambitious party whose members are actually members of SDS with "clean hands" fails to employ more energy in the campaign, it will have to be satisfied if it wins ten to fifteen per cent of the votes. On the contrary, its score could reach up to 25 per cent, but hardly more than that.

The most faithful electorate, as the previous elections showed, is that of the Socialists, who can rely on their 20 per cent. This time, however, they are not without a chance to break this barrier of dreams by simply letting the former and the present SDS members accuse each other of crime and treason. The rest will be divided among the so-called minor parties which justify their existence by regularly spoiling the job for the "big" ones. And that is all. It should not be forgotten that the elections in RS are taking place in an inflammable atmosphere and that it will be pure good luck if by the time they are scheduled the black chronicle in Serb newspapers remains less read than the party chronicle. But there should be no doubt that immediately after publication of the first election results there will be those whose names are on electoral lists who will set out on the journey across the Drina. Both the ones and the others hope that they will not be the ones, but about one thing they all agree: there is no nicer conflict than the one among brethren.

Ivan Djordjevic