Competition for the RS President

MIRKO SAROVIC'S SUBVERSIVISE "YES"

Will Sarovic agree? He will because he is not suicidal. Why hasn't he done it yet? Because he is not suicidal: he wants to convince Milosevic, Poplasen and Krajisnik that when he agrees he will shoot them with rubber bullets.

Banjaluka, October 8, 1999 (AIM)

Will Mirko Sarovic finally become the President of RS doesn't answer the question whether the Serbian entity will have a President, but rather shows the direction that the Serbian political scene will take. First of all, if he intends to replace Nikola Poplasen and to rule in the Republic of Srpska, Sarovic doesn't have to waste his efforts on taking a function which will turn many of his friends into enemies and bring him perhaps only one friend from among his enemies. Namely, no matter how hard the international community tried to convince the Serbs to the contrary, by his departure from this position Poplasen left his chair in such a pit and weakened the presidential function to such an extent that so deeply entrenched at least two next presidents will have no one to order around or rule over.

Therefore, Sarovic's (dis)agreement is much more important as an answer to the question about the future direction of the Serbian policy on the left bank of the Drina river. Namely, at this time of Sarovic's indecision this political scene is controlled by the SDS as the strongest individual party in the Republic of Srpska. In the last eight months this party's political platform has crossed the way from national radicalism (in which the term treason meant both a diagnosis and therapy) to soft national-democratic course with which one time bitter SDS members are practically begging for the hand of the international community so that they could eat out of it and kiss it since the God is too high above, Radovan Karadzic is in hiding and Slobodan Milosevic too far away.

POLASEN'S AND KRAJISNIK'S END: Until Sarovic says his definite "yes", all these changes in the SDS position can be considered as mere political swindle as foreigners in B&H see it. If Sarovic becomes President several major things will consequently happen in the RS. First of all, his "yes" will mean the last and definite "no" to Slobodan Milosevic who will thereby lose as much influence in the Republic of Srpska as the SDS carries weight. His influence will be commensurate to the importance of those publicly and secretly accused by the Hague Tribunal who will continue to rightfully believe that their lives are fatefully linked to the life of the Yugoslav President. Next, although that is what he least wants, with his "yes" Sarovic will kill his political maker Momcilo Krajisnik, a man whose failing political organism will be unable to survive such a radical change.

Further, if Sarovic says "yes", the Radicals will definitely begin to resemble the Topalovic family from the closing scene of the drama entitled "The Last Marathon Leap", i.e. people whose brain has evolved into a brick but who are, nevertheless living at full speed. After Sarovic's agreement no one will need the Radicals and who will, by the will of foreigners, have to step down from the political scene and turn into a secret militant group (risking getting caught in the woods of Mt.Romanija), or become a religious sect loyal to their Belgrade duke-like golden calf or, better still, transform into a glee club which could organise concerts of rage and spite in Serbian villages which SFOR rarely visits. In any case, Sarovic's "yes" would vacate one bench in the Belgrade park Kalemegdan where Poplasen and Krajisnik might have been seen playing chess (as other pensioners usually do) until Milosevic's end.

DODIK AND SERBIAN DOINGS: But if Sarovic accepts the proposition, that will not imply changes just in national parties. Since that will be welcomed on condition that Milorad Dodik remains Prime Minister (and he will know how to reward Sarovic's company with several ministerial posts) that will be the first major step of rapprochement between the Serbs (SDS) and the international community (Dodik). This rapprochement will be additionally accelerated by Mladen Ivanic's party which has the same objective (rapprochement between the Serbs and foreigners) but wants to achieve this under one party leader. If the SDS abandons Krajisnik, Poplasen and the Radicals, not only the Radicals, but some of the SDS electorate, will be in two minds in whom to place their confidence.

Considering that Biljana Plavsic and Zivko Radisic are out of that Serbian picture since the September elections, Mladen Ivancic can be the solution for a large part of the national voters, although he might be a lesser Serbs for them but in the newly created situation is also a lesser traitor in comparison to the mentioned rivals. At the same time, the voters of Socialists, independent Social-Democrats and the SNS, who believe that the Serbdom cannot live on poetry but on calories and stable society, have reason to believe that the authorities have disappointed them more than necessary. That is why Ivancic is an alternative solution for them. At the same time, foreigners resent Dodik for failing to make the RS as stable as much as he made himself rich in the sense mentioned in their talk a year and a half ago.

That is where Ivancic appears as a man uncomfortably breathing down their necks. That is why Sarovic's acceptance of Poplasen's position will be a sensational introduction into rapprochement between Dodik and the SDS, who were only until yesterday the most bitter enemies one could find among the Serbs. With this Dodik will kill two birds with one stone: he will tame his worst Serbian enemies and stifle the increasingly loud opponents among Socialists and the SNS members whose word will not carry so much weight with the SDS behind their backs. All those who listened to the Serbian Prime Minister in Washington telling Madeleine Albright to her ear that the SDS guys were not so bad and that Radovan Karadzic was still the only war leader who renounced all power, have finally realized what the term "Serbian doings" really means.

PARRICIDE WITH RUBBER BULLETS: In the end there remains a question whether Sarovic will accept the offered position. He doesn't look suicidal nor like a man who would leave the families of his party comrades without a stable source of income such as power is. In other words, he will. Another question is why hasn't he done it yet. For the same reasons for which he will agree to do that: Sarovic knows well that nothing would be more stupid than to make such a turnabout and get killed in the process leaving it to others to enjoy the fruits of his labour. That is why everything is still cooking both within the SDS and in Belgrade: the RS Vice President is counting off his last days on that post trying to convince Milosevic, Poplasen and Krajisnik that when he agrees to become the President he will shoot at them only with rubber bullets. And that he will bury them alive, at least when it comes to the political scene, is none of his concern.

Zeljko Cvijanovic (AIM)