An Incurable Disease

Eleven members of the Democratic Movement of Serbia (DEPOS) deputy group in the Federal Assembly are attacking their party leader in an open letter. They accuse him of "making decisions without consulting party bodies", and of "pushing them through as orders given by Vuk Draskovic (Serbian Renewal Movement - SPO leader)".

On January 9 the Democratic Party (DS) started a marathon 16 hours long session. The conflict between DS President Dragoljub Micunovic and pretender to the post Zoran Djindjic has not been resolved yet, because the members of the Main Board broke up the session at 4 a.m. Judging by press statements and political rumors, there is not much hope that the breach will be healed.

Internal party squabbles were rife among most opposition parties prior to elections. The Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) is the only exception inasmuch as its members do not make a song and dance of their differences, but keep them far from the public eye. SPS opponents do not know how to do this. During last autumn's conflict with the SPS, Serbian Radical Party (SRS) leader Vojislav Seselj "unmasked" SRS vice president Ljubisa Petkovic, (a former taxi driver and football coach), accusing him of cooperating with the enemy. Quarrels undermined Milan Babic's Farmer's Party, and probably influenced election results. And finally, practically the whole of last year passed in the disintegration of the old DEPOS.

The opposition behaved in much the same manner in 1990 when it tried to get out of a comatose state with the so called United Opposition, but which boiled down to telling voters to vote for the strongest candidate.

The DS leadership was the scapegoat for the defeat at the 1990 election. DS Executive Board President Zoran Djindjic, defended his party saying that "a spontaneous and mass wave of democratization had not yet taken place in Serbia", and that the repressive state apparatus was capable of localizing and controlling all the opposition's sources of energy.

In the early spring of 1992, an initiative for the unification of all opposition parties was made by non-party figures among well-known intellectuals and members of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences. At first they tried to realize their ideas under the patronage of the Democratic Party, but the DS leadership stalled and later refused to join DEPOS, claiming that the party's identity would be brought into question.

During spring Vuk Draskovic accepted the idea of a single opposition movement. The prevailing mood among those opposed to the authorities, resulted only in anti-Milosevic slogans. The opposition was not to be united by the Holy Synod, the Crown or the Academy of Arts and Sciences...

DEPOS was founded on May 16, 1992 and registered on August 31, 1992. The founders were: the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO), the New Democracy - Movement for Serbia (ND-PS), a group of DS members (they would later join the Democratic Party of Serbia -DSS), the Serbian Liberal Party (SLS). At the time this coalition rallied 14 parties and over one thousand well-known intellectuals in Serbia. Zoran Djindjic was among the founders. DEPOS spokesman Vladeta Jankovic said: "The movement has arisen out of an awareness that political parties cannot do anything in the Assembly, where a show for war profiteers is being staged. When we unite, and after a broad national movement is created, then things will have some meaning." Members of the movement were aware that if they wished to stage some form of a democratic resistance front, then all democratic options would have to get together, from the so-called civic parties, Reformists, Belgrade Circle and Republican Party right over to the nationalist Serbian National Renewal Party (SNO) led by Mirko Jovic. DS member Desimir Tosic made fun of the idea, calling it an "association of useful fools". He claimed that "national fronts and their satellites disintegrated because they lacked a charismatic leader and didn't have a party which could enforce its monopoly."

After Vojislav Kostunica left the DS and founded the DSS, a quarrel over who was to inherit what arose. Kostunica claimed that the Ministry of Justice supported the DS. The registration of the DSS was challenged by the DS, the SPS and the SRS. Speaking of Vojislav Kostunica at the time, prominent opposition member Matija Beckovic said that he was "a cogent figure, who was bound to grow in future", and "embodied a new, young, educated, modern, beautiful and not compromised Serbia". All that is young, beautiful and educated in Serbia, still doesn't have its representative.

In spring a clash broke out in the SPO after Danica Draskovic's (Vuk's wife and SPO top official) courageous and honest statement about the war in Bosnia. At the April 30, 1993 session of the SPO Main Board, it turned out that issues at the root of the SPO's problems were not just the question of defending Moslems, but that there were deep differences over the question of Serbia's national issue. Writer Mladen Markov and SPO vice-president Slobodan Rakitic (signatories of an open letter attacking Draskovic) supported the view that the SPO should remain a "national party". The conflict between the "civic" and "national" options in the party was cathartic, but on the ideological and tactical planes it became a public bone of contention. Two months later, while in hospital, Draskovic unexpectedly gave Rakitic power of attorney to act as SPO president. At a closed session, Rakitic's opponents came out with a long list of grievances. They claimed that Rakitic opposed SPO protest rallies at Svetosavski Square called in defence of Danica and Vuk Draskovic; that he was opposed to the hunger strike staged by DEPOS deputies; that he had not demanded a special session of the Assembly and the setting up of a board of inquiry. In short - that he had not wished to defend Draskovic. On leaving jail Draskovic ignored all that had happened. He continued urging for the opposition's unification with even greater enthusiasm. The SPO was also divided over the issue of toppling the Government with the help of the Serbian Radical Party.

Former Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic tried unsuccessfully to unite the opposition a week ahead of the 1993 elections, and the opposition entered the elections in a defeatist state of mind. Officially, the game was spoilt by Kostunica, while Micunovic is now accusing Djindjic of dissimulation at negotiations.

Following the SPO's defeat at elections, Danica Draskovic blames certain SPO officials for obstruction and sloth (she mentions Rakitic by name and claims that he never crossed the SPO premises once elections had been scheduled. Danica Draskovic believes that the SPS is responsible for the SPO's internal troubles: "Their aim is prevent a vote of confidence in Federal Assembly Speaker Radoman Bozovic and a debate on the federal budget. This is a stalling tactic before the constituting of the Serbian Assembly and the setting up of the Serbian government."

A week after elections, it was clear to all that the opposition would not be forming the government since it cannot pull itself together.