Together Coalition in Nis Shaken Up

All Against All the Others

The harrowing situation of expectation of the final split of the Together coalition which the citizens have been disappointed with since a long time ago, was nothing but a burden for those who are attentively and somewhat masochistically observing the Serbian political scene. The only ones who will derive a benefit from further development of political life in Nis are Nis Socialists who were just a year ago known as the synonym of election theft.

AIM Belgrade, 17 January, 1998

After Belgrade, Cacak and certain other provincial towns, the administration of Together coalition in Nis seems to be also living through its last days. Leaders of the Serb Revival Movement (SPO) in this main regional centre in the south of Serbia have decided, as they themselves say, to "raise their voices and interrupt the silence, in order to drive away the oppressing feeling of being victims of the Together coalition.

The reason for this sudden raising of the head, which according to connoisseurs of political circumstances can cause undesired effects is, according to the words of Branislav Jovanovic, prime minister of city government and vice-president of the SPO district board, is that their former partner, the Democratic Party (DS) has no sense of togetherness any more. The essence of the conflict can be brought down to the support of Nis Democrats to the former member of SPO and mayor of Cacak municipality, Velimir Ilic, who has the intention to found a new party - SPO-Together: "Together coalition in Nis is shaken up due to flirtation of the Democrats with Ilic. This is a conspiracy aimed against Together, that is how the coalition is being destroyed, relations between coalition partners strained, and confidence among them destroyed", Jovanovic explains.

Prime minister of Nis government, Branislav Jovanovic claims that the Democrats and several founders of SPO-Together in Nis, have initiated a campaign of recruiting councilmen of SPO in the city assembly and SPO cadres in the city administration and public enterprises to abandon the SPO and join the new party headed by the mayor of Cacak, Velimir Ilic.

Leaders of the Nis board of the new party SPO-Together claim that 90 per cent of the councilmen from the party headed by Vuk Draskovic in the Nis assembly are ready to join the new party because Vuk Draskovic is scheming with the Socialists: "We do not wish to be accomplices, not even observers in the team which is collaborating with the current regime. This can be done only by deputies and officials of the SPO who have some personal interest and profit", member of SPO-Together presidency, Zoran Kojovic, explains the split.

Nis city prime minister Jovanovic joins in the accusation that personal interest is the main generator of all developments on the political scene of Nis, but claims for the leaders of SPO-Together that they are politically unstable persons received by SPO after it had won local power: "They started asking for the posts of the manager of the clinical centre, advisor to Vuk Draskovic, or to be candidates for deputies. When their wishes were not met they turned their backs to the SPO", says Jovanovic.

And while mutual accusations of "the loyal and the renegades" of SPO are filling the pages of Nis newspapers, Zoran Zivkovic, mayor of Nis and vice president of the Democratic Party comments the case for AIM as follows: "I don't know that there are things due to which the coalition should be shaken. The DS will do nothing that would contribute to dissolution of the coalition. If somebody knows something that is not as it should be, obviously it is something that is not public. That is why it would be best for that person to come out in the open and say what it is all about". He also claims that he does not know that any of the councilmen from the SPO have changed parties nor that anybody has become a member of the SPO-Together: "The DS does not support those councilmen who have separated, but simply understands the need of some politicians to continue their political work and found a new party."

The announcement of SPO councilmen that they would become talkative and bring the whole affair out in the open, representatives of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) consider to be logical, because as, with unconcealed relief, vice-president of SPO in Nis Radoje Kostic says, "among representatives of the SPO in local administration, awareness has grown that they should cease to share responsibility for illegal actions in the city perpetrators of which are leaders and cadres of the DS".

Similar view but with a more realistic evaluation of the Nis political scene is held by representatives of the Radicals of Vojislav Seselj who warn that relations among coalition partners in the local authorities of Nis are permanently and seriously disturbed and that while leaders of the local coalition are satisfying their hurt vanities, curing their complexes and washing their dirty linen in public, citizens of Nis "are paying and suffering the detrimental consequences of their ignorance, incapability and wish to finally end the existing coalition union and form a new one by the model of the one on the level of the Republic". Head of the Radicals Dragoljub Stamenkovic also assesses that only the SPS can be satisfied with the behavior of the DS and the SPO because they are helping the public forget the SPS's own foul dealings, the deceptions, election thefts and forgeries.

The decision of members of the SPO to raise their voices coincided accidentally with the announcements about the beginning of negotiations on formation of the Republican government, and the statement of the president of Nis board of the SPO Ninoslav Stojadinovic that this party was ready to enter the Republican government and "take the share of power which belongs to it according to the number of deputy seats it won" was not denied by anyone. Stojadinovic announced that the negotiations about formation of the Republican government would begin in mid January in order to enable the Republican government to begin work by the end of the month for the benefit of all the citizens.

The harrowing situation of expectation of the final dissolution of the Together coalition which the citizens have been disappointed with for a long time, just burdened those who are attentively and somewhat masochistically observing what is going on on the Serbian political scene. The only ones who will draw some kind of benefit from further development of the political life in Nis are the Socialists from this city who were just a year ago considered to be a synonym of the election theft. By dissolution of the coalition of the SPO and the DS, they would regain power because the relation of forces in Nis assembly is such that none of the three parties (DS, SPO and SPS) will be able to constitute the administration. With the Democratic Party as the opposition and a possible coalition between the SPS and the SPO would bring the Socialists back into power, and the citizens who spent last winter walking down the streets in protest can do nothing but bow their heads and be silent until it dawns on them too that things have gone too far.

Zoran Kosanovic