Another Hundred Days of the RS Government

SEE YOU IN SEPTEMBER

Dodik has not yet embarked upon radical reforms as for the time being that is not among his objectives. He wants to continue his rule after September when it will be clear whether he is truly in favour of reforms or just another Serbian power-loving politician.

AIM Banja Luka, 8 May, 1998

The final result of numerous assessments of Milorad Dodik's Cabinet - about whose first 100 days in power only the Association of Astrologers did not have its say - more or less boils down to the following: the Government is bad, but should not be toppled yet. Same is the opinion of the SDS, the ardent advocate of a thesis that there must be something fishy going on when so many world officials are favourably inclined towards Bosnia and Herzegovina, even though the new Serbian Prime Minister reminds them of Tarsan whenever he gets up or tries to speak English. "When a bungler has a good break and makes a smart move, stay clear of him and don't interfere. It will be enough to wait for him to show his true nature", is the play-it-safe attitude of the Pale authorities which reckon that God has set the time for everything, including Dodik's dethronement.

THE MISCONTENTS: Still, the fact remains that dissatisfied with the Government are even those who were in charge of selecting the present Ministers. In contrast to Dodik, who has problems with finding a good word for his Cabinet in the Serbian language, the RS President, Mrs. Biljana Plavsic, although an ardent supporter of the present Government, rather speaks of "objective conditions" under which "the starting position of many sectors was below zero so that the Ministers had to work hard to improve the situation". Even people like Zivko Radisic, leader of the Socialists, which is the third partner in the ruling coalition, who needs little to be happy, is dissatisfied with the Government's work. He believes that on the internal plane the Dodik Cabinet could have achieved more "especially as concerns the provision of a single constitutional-legal system and elimination of para-statal bodies, grey economy and crime".

The other group of critics, who belong to the opposition coalition of the SDS and the Radicals, is taking a running start in its attempt to prove that Dodik's Cabinet is giving the international community more than is demanded of it. Naturally, this is a matter of treason - a favourite SDS subject - and of releasing the brakes, as only a fortnight ago this party found out that it could neither join nor topple the Dodik Government. Consequently, Krajisnik assessed that the Government "was harmful to the Serbian people because it made empty promises and only cared for revanchism and retribution".

Aleksa Buha, the former Foreign Minister whose phone in his "Ministerial" office on Pale was recently disconnected by the Post Office, is considered the mastermind behind the pre-electoral discrediting of the Dodik Cabinet in his interview to the Belgrade magazine "NIN" also accused the Prime Minister for his irregular pay-cheque. Meticulous collector and researcher of documents he forgot to hand over to the new Government, Buha was entrusted with the task of going through the papers and determining the embarrassing responsibilities of the Republic of Srpska towards the international community which had been undertaken by Gojko Klickovic's Cabinet. He is enjoying his duty of having to rub Dodik's nose in the international obligations of the Republic of Srpska which are, one by one, only now falling due.

Small non-parliamentary parties, which this summer rendered their support to Biljana Plavsic in the anti-corruption scandal, have also joined the list of grumblers, the more because their exclusion from the Government brought them so much closer to the SDS that several days ago they were commended for patriotism by a man who believes that all Serbian parties, except for his, are nothing else but a cosmic incident. This criticism speaks more of a possible third electoral bloc by means of which all the malcontents will endeavour to secure themselves a place in Parliament. Finally, dissatisfied with the Cabinet are also parties of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which would very much like to know whether the support given to Dodik - who is frequently described as Krajisnik with a human face - was worth all the harassment and fears of the possibility of the international community turning on the Federation authorities in its second round of sweeping Bosnia with its iron broom.

WHY A TRANSIT GOVERNMENT: A survey of Dodik's critics shows that the government in power in the Republic of Srpska is only transitional and that it has the primary objective to normalize the situation by the time of September elections and make it possible for the ruling coalition to consolidate its power. Namely, a clear political arrangement for the forthcoming elections can be discerned in this support or criticism of the Government during its first 100 days in power. Firstly, there is the ruling coalition (SNS, SNSD, SPRS) which is still not strong enough to run at the September elections with a joint ballot. However, the most recent meeting of the leaders of these parties held early this week in the Gomionica Monastery, where the agreement on the joint candidate for the President of the Republic of Srpska (Biljana Plavsic) and member of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Presidency (Mladen Ivanic) was finalized, proved that these political groups are growing increasingly interdependent and that, despite of their conflicting views on some important issues, they are somehow destined to be together.

Contrary to expectations, this coalition bloc became homogenized after the recent developments on the political scene. It first happened after the impatient attempts of the FRY President, Slobodan Milosevic and Krajisnik to subsequently squeeze into the Government some ministers from the SDS and Radical ranks. In addition, after Government's first hundred days Plavsic, Dodik and Radisic realized that they were wrong in their assessment that the social rhetoric

• so inbred to Krajisnik's mentality who is dominating this group - would push the national one to the sidelines. Naturally, events in Kosovo and the composition of the new Government of Serbia have, even for a short while, reaffirmed the national political context. All this should play into SDS's and Radicals' hands and thereby keep Milosevic closer to Pale than Banjaluka, because of which the ruling coalitions have instinctively closed their ranks.

Consequently, the first hundred days of Milorad Dodik's Government should be (also) evaluated in the context of the fulfillment of its objectives, and not of popular wishes. Because it is a question whether there is any use in criticizing Dodik for not embarking upon radical social reforms, when it was never his wish. He has a different goal: to rule even after the September elections when it will be clear whether he is truly in favour of reforms or just another Serbian power-loving politician. After he has carefully measured the objectives it turned out that Dodik's true intentions are at odds with the amount of words he uses on the state media and ideas that result from them. In short, until September he must buy social peace, expand his sphere of influence and maintain good relations with everyone that could be of use to him. Observed from that angle, Government with such primary objectives, cannot be unsuccessful. First, some money has been coming in and was distributed through wages and pensions. Naturally, this is an insignificant amount, which was covered by some 30 million USD of assistance that it managed to squeeze out of the international community which is free with its advice, but not so much with its money.

ELIMINATION OF MILOSEVIC: All firms in the Republic of Srpska which do not register losses, as well as those which do but have the state to cover them, have new General Managers which is also a part of the plan of expanding the sphere of influence of the ruling coalition. SFOR returned the transmitter to the state television, which doesn't mean that it has started broadcasting its programme, but nevertheless, this kind of moving pictures are welcomed by the poor people even when the picture is blurred. During these hundred days the Government has established control over the entire legal, and part of the illegal money flow. Thus, it forced Krajisnik and Buha to open their purses hidden for rainy days and with rather uncertain prospects that any of it would be returned after September.

All this goes to show that nobody should have expected more of the Milorad Dodik Government, although it still remains unclear who needed the seven-digit promises given to the famished people. The Government is safe until September. Naturally, the SDS is slowly returning to the old rhetoric according to which the world is hungry because Krajisnik, Buha and Co. are such Serbs as can only be imagined. The Government in which the clash between the pro-Western and pro-Dedinje forces ended with the withdrawal of the latter to the background, will protect the election results also by keeping Milosevic at bay so as not to give him a chance to find similarities between Plavsic-Dodik-Radisic coalition and the coalition "Together", but also close enough so as to prevent the RTS from claiming that Mrs.Plavsic doesn't like him just because he is a Serb.

That is why it is still too early to give a final assessment of the Dodik Cabinet as the September assessment of its success or failure will be precise since it will be measured with the success the ruling parties coalition scores at the elections. Until then, no serious reforms are planned nor contemplated by anyone in the Republic of Srpska. Unless, payment of regular wages from international assistance, which is not to be neglected, can be considered a reform.

Zeljko Cvijanovic

(AIM)