Touching the Untouchables

Milan Babic's come-back at the parliamentary and presidential elections in Krajina may not prove to be a complete disaster for the Serbian Socialists if the whole thing is based exclusively on the will of voters. The people of Krajina are aware how much (or how little) import is attached to their votes and how their representatives ought to be behaving if they want to remain in power. However, the Socialists will have a serious reason for concern if it turns out that Babic and his men were able to "rig" the election results. The only real power in Krajina is in the hands of military and police who are directly instructed and controlled from Belgrade.

Mile Martic, the official candidate of the Serbian regime who is also the Interior Minister of the Republic of Serb Krajina has control over the sources of information; the question, therefore, is: what did his men do? There are two possibilities. According to the first possibility, they did nothing as they relied on Radio Television Serbia and its ardent support to Milan Martic. According to the second possibility, the Belgrade regime was cornered by a parallel military and police infrastructure which Babic had built. If the latter proves to be the case, the President of Serbia and his followers in Krajina remain helpless before the Knin war lord.

After the initial shock Belgrade was quick to recuperate with help from the Republic electoral commission; the results processed at polling stations were not declared valid for days. The parliamentary elections in Serbia were the next thing on the agenda so that the process had to be prolonged as long as it was necessary. At the same time, the media in Serbia, which are strictly controlled by the state, made sure that all objections of Martic's electoral headquarters were covered properly. Everything became clear when the electoral commission annulled the election results in Drnis, Gracac, Donji Lapac, Mirkovci and Vukovar. Knin, where Babic's Serbian Democratic Party of Krajina won 7 out of 8 seats, followed. Allegedly 24 valid ballots with presidential candidates had been found in a garbage container (Rade Leskovac received 12 votes, Martic 8, Goran Hadzic and Ranko Bakic 1 vote each and Jovo Opacic 2). And, finally, the elections were declared invalid in Krnjak, Podravska Slatina, Grubisino polje and Daruvar. It was explained that the elections results were handed in after the dead-line.

Furthermore, Martic himself saw to it that the first multi-party elections in Krajina were contested. He said he had been disappointed with the methods "some participants in the election race used only to take over power" and that by proclaiming their victory only a day after the elections they admitted a number of violations committed at polling stations. Martic announced he would withdraw from the presidential race not only in the second round but also in places where the elections were to be repeated unless the members of the electoral commissions and voting boards were replaced. In other words, he refused the rules of the game if he was not the one to make them. Since he failed to mention he would resign from the ministerial post, his requests were given additional weight: a dark shadow of fraud fell on the elections and a peaceful change of power became almost impossible in such a situation.

The Republic electoral commission of the Republic of Serb Krajina finally published the election results in Krajina eight days after the elections were held (according to their data the second round of the presidential election is inevitable since it was "exactly" 49.89 percent of the electorate who voted for Babic). That's how it was learned that Babic and his supporters were so hungry for power that they gave in to nervousness and with their premature statements concerning the composition of the government came into conflict with "a global policy of Serbian interests." The statement of Vuk Draskovic, the leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO), that the candidate of Belgrade had failed in Knin was received with euphoria and what's even worse the statement that "Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic had been defeated in Krajina" kindled enthusiasm. Moreover, Babic said that he would take into consideration the changed balance of power in the Serbian parliament after the parliamentary elections on December 19.

It seems that the big game has started. It was made clear to Babic that Belgrade will not tolerate an independent policy in Krajina and that it still believes it has ways of controlling him, primarily through Martic and his policemen. It was also hinted to him that it depends on him what Krajina will look like after the elections are repeated on December 26. If he does not touch the untouchables, since it is expected that he will confirm his election victory, an agreement is possible. Otherwise, an attempt at the state of emergency is certain, and Martic has already cited a reason, "tensions that might lead to the situation similar to that in Cazin Krajina (where the forces loyal to Fikret Abdic, the former member of the Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina are fighting against the forces loyal to Alija Izetbegovic, the Bosnian President)." Finding supporters for such a thing is not difficult. Besides, final agreements among big national war lords seem to be taking shape at the moment, so that all available means to suppress the hard-headedness of the little ones like Babic will be used. That is the reason why it is irrelevant whether the elections in Krajina were rigged or not - what's much more important is that a police and military structure which escapes the control of Belgrade has been established as well as the question whether a peaceful change of power is possible. Over the last three years the only way to rule over Krajina was by means of a gun and truncheon, and Babic, Martic, Leskovac and the majority of Krajina leaders are the same when it comes to that. The only difference is their readiness to do it for their own benefit and to the extent which is out of control of their creators.