What will Become of the Serb Democratic Party?

Too Early for the Museum - Too Late for a Comeback

AIM Banja Luka, 15 June, 1998

Six months after early parliamentary elections for the national assembly of Republika Srpska, a convention of the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) has not been held yet, although its leadership had announced that it would urgently be convened immediately after the elections and after the results were made public. The public was informed that the newly established situation would be analyzed at the convention, that the elections and the new position of the SDS would be assessed, that necessary cadre "refreshments" would be introduced, and a strategy of action in the new circumstances defined.

In the meantime, from the only and untouchable ruling party in RS, the SDS has become an opposition party on the republican level. For the status and future of this party, this fact is much more important than the fact that in the early parliamentary elections it lost almost half of its electorate and from the previous 45 deputies in the parliament it has come down to only 24 in the new convocation. Not even a possible coalition with the Serb Radical Party - according to its platform, its closest ally - could not bring it back to power.

A few sessions of the Main Board were held, but even more sessions of the Presidency of the SDS (the agency founded last year before the local elections in RS) where mostly current political issues were discussed. A few personnel shifts were also made, but unpopular politicians were not eliminated. In the just formed presidency there are 10 vice presidents of the party, so that, not even Aleksa Buha, man with an exceptional memory, could remember the names of all his vice-presidents in a television program.

Nevertheless, the SDS is still the most powerful party in RS. It has nine deputies more than the Serb Radical Party of RS and the Serb National League (SNS), which have fifteen deputies in the parliament each. This fact should be respected, but in the analysis of the destiny of this party on the political scene and "market" of RS, it is necessary to go beyond it.

Based on what is happening with the SDS and what is happening around it, and in what it is willingly or unwillingly participating in, it can be concluded that the political zenith of this party has already passed. It can never raise to power in RS again. This might happen only if it appeared with other parties related to it in an election or post-election coalition. In other words, the SDS will further drop on the scale of popularity, reputation and influence on political life in RS. Its electorate is narrowing down especially in the north and the west of RS, so geography is becoming the decisive factor of political configuration in this entity. How far down that fall will be depends primarily on further process of dissolution of the SDS, but also on the influence of different international political forces and mediators.

Ever since it lost power, that is, for more than four months, the SDS cannot accept the fact that it is an opposition party now, which is looking upon power from below and not from the position of power. Ther SDS is also still behaving as as an all-national political, spiritual, cultural and every other movement of the Serbs from B&H. The SDS seems to be overlooking, or does not have the strength to admit it, that on the political scene of RS there are nowadays five parliamentary parties and that another twenty participate in legislature on the local level. And this means that not a single political party can claim the exclusive right to formulate and protect national interests any more, the way the SDS did and on the basis of which it created its image and built its stronghold among the Serb nation in RS.

The SDS has made a few cardinal mistakes in the political, military, economic, social and religious field, but it especially discreditted itself by "producing" a few scandals, without having succeeded in resolving any, and in this way at least partly in removing the stain from its name and that of some of its officials. In this way, all the mistakes and sins are inevitably laid at the door of the SDS.

All the personnel changes in the SDS have so far been just "cosmetic" removal of those who had no influence on conceiving the party policy anyway. After local, but especially after early parliamentary elections, in autumn last year the SDS initiated "differentiation" in its own ranks, demanding that local leaderships and minor party officials render account for the bad results.

That is why municipal conventions of the SDS were held in a few municipalities, new local committees of the SDS were elected and a new president of a municipal committee here and there. However, all that is insufficient to change the image of this party, its cadre and change in its policy.

As long as "early fighters" of the SDS and its main pillars like Gojko Klickovic, Miroslav Toholj, Bozidar Vucurevic, and even Miroslav Vjestica leave the political scene of RS, or Dragan Djuric, Milan Ninkovic, Nemanja Vasic, Djoja Arsenovic and a whole series of those who charged dearly for their patriotism, the SDS will not be able to prevent the fall of its rating, and not to say anything about return to power. It still is not for the museum, but its comeback to the old glory is also completely out of the question.

In this context, it is very interesting to assume who the votes traditionally given to the SDS will now go to. It is very probable that those who were in the SDS for extremely honest political reasons, for national idealism and for the sake of fighting for establishment and preservation of the Serb state in B&H, those who had joined it because of their anti-socialistic passions, but who also believed that the rule of the SDS would ensure more order, work and similar, will mostly choose the Serb Radical Party of RS. Two facts will contribute to this: the first is that Serb Radicals did not wish to enter the executive power - not even with the SDS - if they had to share it with parties from the Federation of B&H, and the other is the rise of the Radicals in Serbia and their participation in the government of the "parent state".

Those who were with the SDS led by inertia, jumping aboard the bandwagon, will after the erosion and fall of this party, join another national option. In places which the Serb National League (in Podrinje, eastern Herzegovina, on mount Romanija, around Sarajevo) still has not reached and therefore where it is not discreditted, former fans of the SDS will go along the party of Ms. Plavsic. In the regions where the SNS unfortunately proved to be a bad copy of the SDS, disappointed supporters of the SDS could circle on the ballot the number in front of some minor, local parties, and keep them alive by doing it. Those who made good use of their party membership cards and who boasted of their "patriotism" and who remained in this party for as long as it was convenient for them, will now mostly vote for independent Social Democrars. Not because they have suddenly become "Europe-oriented", inclined to cooperation with the "surroundings" and because they give advantage to economic criteria over narrow political ones, but because of the new chance to use possibilities offered by power or being close to it.

Miladin KOSTOVIC