Testing The "Coward's'' Patience

The Federal Parliament's Chamber of Citizens voted with 86 votes in favor of lifting Vojislav Seselj's immunity and that of three other SRS deputies. Filip Stojanovic, Milorad Jevric and Slobodan Petricevic were left without immunity, while the proposal for lifting Drasko Markovic's immunity was quashed.

On September 19, they all received conditional sentences for obstructing an official in his line of duty, after an incident in the Federal Parliament on May 18. During the aforementioned incident, Markovic, upset by Speaker Radoman Bozovic's continual interruptions and switching off of the microphone, poured a glass of water over Bozovic. Seselj then messed up some electronic equipment on the Speaker's desk and, with a group of his deputies, prevented the security men from carrying out the Chamber's will. The prosecutor complained and demanded unconditional sentences and this was the reason that the Chamber of Citizens was voting on immunity, something that the Radicals didn't call on at the beginning of the process. A higher court was expected to debate the complaint on Thursday (October 27), but the debate was put off for a day. The Radicals claim that they know that the higher court will lift Seselj's conditional sentence and pronounce an unconditional sentence. This is the second time that Seselj has lost his immunity in the last two months. When their immunity was lifted, the deputies claimed that the Chamber had been inconsistent because it had amnestied the main ``offender''Drasko Markovic. There is some system in the ``discontinuance of legal proceedings'' against Markovicthe decision on his removal from the hall was made by the Chamber, and not by Bozovic, so that all further actions meant contradicting the will of the Parliament and not the Speaker. In other words, the Radicals did the Socialists a favor, since they now had the opportunity of demonstrating that they were protecting the Parliament from immunity abuse (regardless of the fact that they had encouraged such behavior until recently).

The Radicals opted for classical obstruction maneuvers. First they tried to challenge the regularity of the vote countDrasko Markovic even said that he would give up his immunity if the vote was not repeated. For every hundredth or so complaint, Bozovic demanded that the Chamber check if the standing orders had been violated and did not allow a second vote to be taken. One consequence of Bozovic's implementation of the new standing orders was to ban photographers from entering the Chamber once the session had started (they were allowed to follow proceedings from the gallery) and were not allowed to cross an imaginary line in the Parliament corridor, from which they had no chance of asking Bozovic anything while he was on his way from his cabinet to the Speaker's platform.

Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) deputy Mihailo Markovic recalled that Bozovic had upheld Seselj's challenging of the vote when former Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic had been relieved of his post and had allowed a second round of voting. He did not do so now because the challenging of the vote would have been a waste of time and because the Socialists had finally managed to establish a majority in the Federal Parliament. Many deputy mandates have been challengedthose of Rakitic's group (a group of deputies who have splintered from the SPO) are being looked into by the Committee for mandate questions, but they haven't been divested of them by the Chamber. The mandates of the splinter SPO deputies have not been verified yet because of this; the SRS challenges the mandates of its own splinter group; Vladan Gajic (SPO) and some other deputies claimed that two new SPS deputies were present in the Chamber.

It can be said that the Socialists have broken through the blockade of the Federal Parliament, which has lasted since May 18. Federal Prime Minister Radoje Kontic held a speech in the Chamber of Republics a month ago because the Chamber of Citizens was ``working with interruptions.''

In the meantime, there has been a cabinet reshuffle. Seselj said that he wasn't much interested in it, because the SRS would demand the dismissal of those who had voted for sanctions against the Bosnian Serb Republic (RS). In late September, twenty SRS deputies submitted a demand for a noconfidence vote in the government because of measures against the RS. The voting will probably take place these days, but nobody expects the government to fall.

When the debate on procedure had finished, Kontic explained the government's measures and claimed that the government ``firmly supported the realization of the stabilization program.'' Federal deputy and member of the Serbian cabinet, Dragan Tomic, said optimistically that the Federal Parliament would be informed next year that production was approaching that of 1990.

Borisav Jovic (SPS) expressed certain dissatisfaction with the government's work and demanded an explanation on where the dangers to the program lay, in order that the Parliament might remove them; he underscored that either the regulations were not good enough or policies weren't being implemented consistently. He proposed that the Government admit that it didn't have enough foreign currency for all those who wanted it.

Miroljub Labus (Democratic Party representative) was very critical of the situation and demanded that a devaluation be carried out immediately and the rate fixed for the next six months, that the printing of money be limited, that foreign currency be sold freely to the citizens, that all public deficits be eliminated immediately and that the citizens' old foreign currency savings accounts be reimbursed through the sale of state property.

Milan Komnenic (SPO) criticized the Federal PM for not being prepared to admit that the economic program was seriously shaken.

The debate dragged on for another day, filled with mocking of ``doubting Thomases'' and swearing by ``professor Avramovic's recipe'' (Yugoslav National Bank Governor Dragoslav Avramovic). The official media then started repeating that the Parliament had reached the conclusion that there was ``no alternative to the program,'' and that it was necessary to prevent the ``uneconomical alienation of foreign currency'' and ``the import of suspect goods from the West and the East,'' etc. The debate was reminiscent of those conducted by the former Communist Party Central Committees, when various reforms were being throttled. In an unfinished state, all of this left the impression of normalcy, emptiness and artificiality. True, etiquette is back, but none view it as such; it is true that the lifting of immunity is a delicate matter in any political system, but many believe that the issue here does not concern a loss of immunity, but a divorce; it is true that the dignity of the Parliament is being defended, but it all leaves a comical impression; the debate on the fate of the program is of great importance, but few are interested; a vote of confidence will be taken, but no one is taking much notice... Democratic Party (DS) vicepresident Ivan Vujacic told ``Beta'' news agency on October 14, two weeks before the current Parliament session, that the Federal government had nothing to show for itself, ``that thanks to the inactivity of the Federal Government, the Federal Parliament was being made marginal,'' that the federal state was living in a legal vacuum and that this was the reason the DS was urging elections in order that a ``public reshuffle of political forces might be carried out.''

During the summer, the Radicals tried to start off the campaign with benign incidentsusing a farcical court process (the disappearance of cassettes, which were evidence) to challenge and humiliate Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. Tomislav Nikolic, second in line in the SRS, said that Seselj had instigated the first incident with Bozovic in agreement with his deputy group, while SRS dissident Jovan Glamocanin said that this was ``not true.''

The authorities demonstrated novelty in their political dealings when they decided to respond to Seselj with a controlled escalation of the sanctions. At the hearing on June 15, called for preventing an official in his line of duty, Seselj and the SRS deputies were accused, among other things, for violating the reputation of the Republic, since they claimed that ``Slobodan Milosevic was the main and biggest criminal in Serbia.'' However, the court decided to debate this separately in the municipality court where the offence had been made. After this, various courts received private libel complaints against Seselj. After hearing the first conditional sentence, Seselj triumphantly declared that Slobodan Milosevic had proved that he was a ``coward,'' because he didn't have the guts to ``throw the Radicals into jail.''

When the clash escalated, the Radicals tried to win political points from the lifting of mandates and to dramatize the fact that their leader was in jail.

SRS deputies appeared on the platform one after another, proposing significant changes in the agenda, but they were always outvoted, and sometimes laughed at.

In the hyperproduction of proposals, the Socialists found it easy to evade topics which, if they had been prepared seriously and placed on the agenda, might have led to a crisis. Since all of the proposals put forward by the Radicals were treated as an obstruction of procedure, the Radicals walked out while PM Radoje Kontic was speaking. The next day they returned to criticize the government. When the centrist opposition had done exactly the same thing earlier, the Radicals had made a laughing stock of them. It is obvious that with Seselj in jail, the SRS has been deprived of the surplus of insolence that none had been able to counter before. They have become much tamer.