DEMOCRACY DID NOT TAKE ROOT IN THE REPUBLIC OF SRPSKA

Elections in the Republic of Srpska

Irrespective of the outcome of these elections, it is already clear now that the basic achievement of these elections can be summarized with the following sentence: A major international project on the democratization of the RS has failed.

Banjaluka, September 14, 1998 (AIM)

The Serbs have once again given their votes to the nationalists, mostly those who like to call themselves "hard-liners". At least that was the impression gained 24 hours before the closing of the polls in the Republic of Srpska, which is time enough to get a general idea on the orientation of the electorate, but still insufficient to rule out a possible turnabout. However, first day after the elections it seemed as if the candidates of the SDS and Radicals - Nikola Poplasen and Momcilo Krajisnik were leading and that deputy lists of these two parties have won a relative majority of some 38 percent, while only 33 percent of voters cast their ballot for the coalition "Sloga". Consequently, the SRS Headquarters issued several statements on Monday, while the SDS, as the coalition older brother whom such jumping the gun is not befitting, only laconically confirmed the conclusions of the Radicals.

True, results were denied by the "Sloga" coalition, but rather unconvincingly. First, on Monday morning Ostoja Knezevic, Vice-President of the Serbian National Alliance, appeared before the journalists and with a sour face told them that Biljana Plavsic and Zivko Radisic have scored better than their opponents. After that, at a press conference organized by that party that afternoon, at which its leaders Plavsic, Radisic and Milorad Dodik were expected to participate, only Dragoljub Trivanovic, Chief of the Socialist electoral headquarters, appeared and said that the results announced by the SRS headquarters were a matter of "political marketing". Trivanovic also said that, according to incomplete results, Plavsic and Radisic were winning and that his coalition was expecting a victory which he corroborated with a list of only 12 cities in which they were in the lead. At the same time, no one at the Sloga's electoral headquarters answered the phone and when someone did, the only reply was that nothing was certain yet. True, it is still possible that their position might improve or even reverse once votes from abroad are counted, but hopes of the coalition "Sloga" have definitely turned sour.

COHABITATION IN THE RS: All this naturally still doesn't mean a drastic change of the political configuration in the RS as it appears that there are three things which are constant feature here. First, the majority of the Serbian electorate is most loyal to the nationalists, be they "hard" or "soft" liners. In short, national parties (SDS, SRS, SNS) have won more than a convincing majority. In addition, Social-Democrats (if with much tolerance we agree to call the SPRS and SNSD that) are still unable to secure one fifth of seats in Parliament although Nelson Mendella is the only world renown statesman with whom their front-runner Milorad Dodik did not have his picture taken or who didn't grant him a credit. The third constant is that once again none of the Serbian blocs will be able to form the Government on their own without joining forces or allying with deputies from the parties of the B&H Federation, which will again, in all probability, win less than one fourth of the mandate.

Although it's too early for forecasts, it can be said that the coalition "Sloga" will be the first to reach the federal bloc, all the more so as wishes of influential representatives of the international community in B&H are turned in that direction. If, on the other hand, Nikola Poplasen defeats Biljana Plavsic that will produce a state of political cohabitation (a situation in which the President is from a bloc which doesn't form the Government). That would be a shortcut to the total paralysis of the Republic of Srpska as it is impossible to imagine who would be Prime Minister designate that Nikola Poplasen could propose and the "Sloga" coalition accept, especially delegates from the Federation. No matter how the forthcoming hot political autumns in the RS ends, the basic achievement of these elections can be summarized as follows: A major international project on the democratization of the RS has failed. Why?

By supporting Biljana Plavsic and Dodik in the past year, the international community has chosen a sort of a combined method of pacifying the Republic of Srpska. Namely, it simultaneously supported moderate nationalists (Plavsic), who are the only one capable of winning today some votes in the field and getting some foreign support, and social-democrats (Dodik) who are considered by the international factors to be the political future of the Republic of Srpska. Both sides lost with this combination. Plavsic's promises that Serbs would not be evicted from the houses when the Bosniac and Croat refugees return sounded less convincing when she was holding Dodik's hand then when Krajisnik, against whose life Dodik was plotting all along, claimed the same.

At the same time Dodik, who can be considered a sort of central tragic figure of the elections, has also made so many mistakes that even the fact that he opened the Republic of Srpska to the world and got some money from it did not help him. On the other hand, the international community was first forced to occasionally close its eyes and grind its teeth to some of the Government's obviously undemocratic moves, then to tolerate new cases of corruption in the Serbian executive authorities only to conclude in the end that a large amount of the money invested in the "Dodik Project" was wasted without producing the desired results. The Serbian Prime Minister could never managed to look like Willie Brandt abroad, whose work he was knew from what he could read about it in the "Independent Papers" (Nezavisne Novine), and like Slobodan Milosevic in the country, whose power technology based on the principle "I give you pensions, you give me your votes" he was able to understand as much as a mediocre president of a commune.

FAILURE OF THE "DODIK PROJECT" : There is also a perverse truth in this: no matter how much the failure of the "Dodik Project" has been the cause of Sloga's fiasco this doesn't mean its end because the election results will, in a way, consolidate the positions of the Serbian Prime Minister. How? It is highly unlikely that Biljana Plavsic, whether she remained the President or not, will enter an alliance with the Radicals, least of all with Krajisnik's SDS as that would not be tolerated by the international community which last year gave her, her coalition partners as well as a part of the SNS, significant assistance indeed. Partial success of the "Sloga" (a situation in which it has neither mastered the game nor is out yet) will primarily consolidate the ties of this coalition with the Bosniacs and Croats and that will keep Dodik in the Prime Minister's seat for another two years. Naturally, all this is possible only if Mrs.Plavsic outruns Poplasen in the last lap or he gets disqualified because of some interview broadcast by the Belgrade TV Palma, which is famous for its latest porno movies and out-dated political interviews.

On the other hand, if the blood feud between "Sloga" and the SDS-Radical bloc doesn't stop, the parliamentary crisis in the RS will be so deep that the Prime Minister designate will have to be appointed either by Westendorp or the RS electorate will go to the polls much earlier than they expected. Irrespective of the electoral outcome, democratization of the Republic of Srpska, which was launched last summer practically as Biljana Plavsic's under cover action, and widely supported by the world, has not taken root in the electorate which is its greatest failure. What is at the same time both comforting and worrying, is that this doesn't have to be its last chance. But, if anyone has learned anything here, he did not learn from mistakes, least of all his own. For this to happen, one would first have to admit to having made a mistake.

Zeljko Cvijanovic

(AIM)