The Good Life Ahead Of Elections

The main reason for this need not be sought in the dissolving of the Assembly, but in the fact that elections have been scheduled immediately, and experience has shown that life was always best before the elections. The first day brought a confirmation that the state would loosen the purse strings this time too: the next lot of pensions will be four times higher than the previous batch, and they will be paid out two days earlier.

A novelty in the calculation of pensions is a ``compensation'' to pensioners for the amount of money which the employed receive in goods. This is justified, considering that salaries increasingly represent the smaller part of the income of the employed. It is not clear why this novelty is being introduced right now, when there were plenty of reasons for doing so during the whole year.

This is why there is a dilemma if the pensioners' joy will last once elections are over. It would do good to remember that the night ahead of the previous elections, the Serbian authorities, in spite of protests by the electrical supply company, prolonged the deadline for the payment of electricity bills; that the peasants suddenly found themselves inundated in oil, fertilizers and seeds... Those in the know claim that Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic has rubbed PM Nikola Sainovic's nose because of his statement that he had secured enough oil for the autumn agricultural activities.

There is no doubt that there will be enough oil, but the PM seems to have jumped the gun and announced the good news too soon. The people will certainly be happy to receive the Socialists' election gifts, even though experience has taught them that this largesse will not last long. That is why a sigh of sorrow was heard because elections have not been scheduled for the end of winter. In the meantime. the devastation of the national economy continues, at a much faster rate and of a greater scope than the economic blockade could ever hope to achieve. It is true that Sainovic's government abandoned a policy which it launched recently with a lot of fanfare.

It still remains to be admitted that the state apparatus is not capable of organizing the distribution of 34 rationed goods. But, in spite of the government's zigzag policy, the National Bank of Yugoslavia (NBJ) continues to print fresh money.

The Socialists are not ignoring the fact that their candidate for the post of NBJ Governor was turned down by the Federal Assembly. The same money policy remains, with or without a new governor (see text by M. Labus). The entral bank's policy is a secret as far as the public is concerned, or rather, it is a secret that the pension fund and others have long been spent, and that the only good news for pensioners, are occasional gifts from the state's money printing works.