Everything's the Way It Was Last Year (Just Much Worse)

`What history will one day say about this time and these authorities will not extremely affect the atmosphere and results of the called parliamentary elections,'' Aleksandra Posarac of the Belgrade Economic Institute told VREME. ``I believe that the authorities' actions are disasterous in every respect, but that the vast majority of the citizens is still unable to relate what is happening to them today with the authorities' moves.

This could significantly affect the outcome of the elections, particularly if nothing changes in the way the state media, the state TV above all, melt all the failures and defeats of the current regime and present them as success and virtues. That is why I think no surprises are possible in the two months we have until the elections. Simply, a lot of things give rise to the conclusion that there is ``No Uncertainty'' (the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia's slogan in the autumn '90 campaign)the vertical downfall of the economy and the majority of the population will continue, we shall be closer to total collapse and hopelessness and, despite everything, the SPS will be the closest to victory.

The authorities have obviously assessed that the vertical downfall cannot be stopped and that this is the last moment to call the elections. Any postponement of the date might prove too risky for the ruling party. That is the only explanation why we have shifted directly from the stories about how the elections are extremely expensive, how they weary the people out and waste valuable time to new elections without previously having tried any other cheaper alternative.''

Ms. Posarac does not rule out the possibility that we all wake up on the day of the elections with a much better supply of goods, with better salaries, better heating than we had expected and better city transportation. Noone now knows what reserves the state has, it is only clear that they are much smaller than had been claimed until recently, Posarac says. The regime which is holding everything in its hands will undoubtedly try and invest more effort and will inject the reserves, which were initially to have lasted as long as possible, into the election campaign to convince the voters to cast their ballots for SPS.

Anyway, excessive money printing has not been a problem for the current government so far. ``When the situation is disastrous and when people are waiting for bread, milk, city transportation for hours, with incidents often breaking out, any improvement, even minimal, is a great relief. Our horizon has narrowed down to how to survive until the following day and any improvement in the period before the elections will seem immense. One could cynically say that it is a shame the elections are so soon. If they were called for February, we could at least pass the winter in warm apartments,'' says Posarac.

Posarac predicts that no social upheavals can upset the election atmosphere. On the one hand, most often, people whose diet is irregular, meager and unhealthy, are not ``the material'' for major social revolutions. The hungry always fear they may be yet hungrier tomorrow the powerwielders might easily replace their slogan ``that's the way it should be'' by ``It isn't as dismal as it can be.''

On the other hand, there can be no social upheavals because the ones who could initiate them are mostly sitting idle, on paid leaves, blackmailed by pink slips. ``The authorities can be completely calm in that respect,'' says Posarac and cites the example of the Serbian metalworkers who recently ``postponed'' the announced strike as soon as they received a 60% raise on their ``existential minimum,'' without taking into account whether the raise also applied to the salaries of textile workers, for example. VREME's other collocutor, Vladimir Goati of the Belgrade Institute of Social Sciences, says that one of the chief traits of the upcoming elections will be the absence of the ``rational voter.'' At the time of collective decline and numerous frustrations, it is impossible to reason objectively and this is why many people will obviously be unable to rationally observe what is happening around them even ahead of these third elections,'' Goati says.

He is of the opinion that the election campaign will pass in an atmosphere resembling last year's. The conditions of the elections were unequal, but it was important to lure at least someone from the opposition to take part in them in order to proclaim them legitimate. When that was done, the ``domino effect'' ensued and nearly all opposition parties decided to participate. The same game is being played this time as well, Goati says. The authorities are prepared even for the boycott of the elections, Goati underscores.

One has good reason to wonder whether this regime cares at all about its international reputation and whether the logic when we can't count on the lifting of the sanctions soon, let's at least retain the power has prevailed. The economic sanctions and Yugoslavia's exclusion from international financial organisations also caused the Yugoslav political elite's loss of motivation to maintain the newly established democratic institutions.

While the elites of other postcommunist countries included in the network of international economic and financial arrangements know that the stiffling of democratic institutions would mean an automatic cancelling of these arrangements, no such sanction threatens the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, since it is already completely isolated from international economic developments. This might represent a major temptation for the regime to opt for authoritarianism in the near future.'' says Goati.

Beside this dismal prediction of the future of already fragile democratic institutions, Goati underlines another possible trait of the upcoming elections the syndrome of fear of the first legal takeover of power. As opposed to many Central and Eastern European countries, power has not changed hands in Serbia and Montenegroit has remained in the hands of reformed communists. ``This very delicate moment, something like losing one's virginity, has obviously been postponed until some other elections.

It simply has to happen sometime. This is why I see the upcoming elections in Serbia as a new attempt to delay this extremely sensitive moment. That is the reason why it is possible that the opposite direction is taken after the elections rule without the opposition in the parliament or with a meaningless fictitious opposition,'' says Goati. Describing the atmosphere which might characterise the time left until the elections, both Posarac and Goati say we have again found ourselves on the same crossroads and that we are, more or less, experiencing a ``deja vu.'' As one would say, Everything's the way it was last year, just much worse.

Last December, estimates were that we needed between 3.5 and 4 million dollars to pay off our foreign debts and revive the economy. This December, at the time of the elections, the estimated sum will be double. Meanwhile, the sanctions have been tightened and Stoltenberg took Vance's place. Everything else is the same; even Serbia's ``ideological headquarters,'' the state TV, has recently considerably increased the number of reports about southern Serbian ``successful firms,'' which the sanctions cannot affect at all.