The Power of The Radicals

Seselj got a suspended sentence for "opposing a security officer" in the federal parliament on September 19 and neither he nor the other SRS deputies who were sentenced with him invoked their right to immunity, intending to entice the authorities into launching a political trial. They said Slobodan Milosevic was a coward because "he doesn't have the guts to put the Radicals in jail". Seselj was also charged with insulting the Serbian president but that trial was never continued.

The Radicals actually spent almost a year in court. Seselj and four other SRS deputies were sentenced: Drasko Markovic, Filip Stojanovic, Milorad Jevric and Slobodan Petricevic to suspended sentences of between four and eight months which were later reduced. In Montenegro, SRS deputy Acim Visnjic is on trial and before him Ceko Dacevic a former SRS deputy went on trial.

Seselj was expelled from Montenegro last summer after a rally in Herceg Novi. Towards the end of the year, Montenegrin President Momir Bulatovic said that the only mistake he made as the protector of the Constitution was expelling Seselj at the state's expense.

When SRS federal deputy Maja Gojkovic (outgoing deputy Speaker) suggested that the Chamber of Citizens should discuss Seselj's expulsion from Montenegro, Speaker Bozovic interrupted the session. Seselj went to a meeting of parliamentary group chiefs and spat at Bozovic and called him a crook after Bozovic had insulted the Radicals as being primitive. Seselj got a month in jail.

Deputies and opposition leaders didn't know what to do: to defend parliament from Seselj, who systematically turned it into a farce, or from the Socialists who easily relativized the importance of immunity.

Seselj's Serb Radicals, formed under the auspices of the authorities, haven't been able so far to compete with the rallies organized by Vuk Draskovic, whom they opposed for around 20 months.

Public opinion researchers were wrong in their predictions several times, because the polls never registered the Radicals. The secret of covert Radicalism probably coincides with the present characteristics of the extreme right voters; they rarely admit their nationalist hatred in public; they don't gather in large numbers but they do show up to vote. Researchers were surprised by Zhirinovsky in Russia and Le Pen in France in the same way.

The profile of latent radicalism is represented by the poorer stratas of society, the people who are socially endangered, suburban communities or those living between city and country, but also in great measure skilled workers. Rural environments don't have above average radicalism. Considering regional criteria, researchers were surprised by the concentration of radicalism in Belgrade. The Serbian Socialist party (SPS), viewed socially, is no more a workers' party than the SRS. The largest number of the SRS voters are unskilled and semi-skilled workers (18%) office workers (16%), skilled and highly-skilled workers (14%), unemployed (12%), farmers (8%), pensioners (8%), experts (6%), housewives (4%), small businessmen (4%).

Seselj's family roots are in Herzegovina. As the exponent of fierce warmongering, he was first elected to parliament in the early summer of 1990, when the pre-war tension culminated in the Belgrade workers'and overseers suburb of Rakovica. He was elected to replace the late socialist deputy, writer Miodrag Bulatovic. Seselj ran against and beat writer Borislav Pekic, a long time dissident and advocate of democratic tendencies. That summer, Pekic's loss, not Seselj's victory, was the depressing warning.

The local council elections in Rakovica now show that the SRS still has a strong following there. SRS candidate Mila Kovacevic has entered the second election round. SRS official Dragan Todorovic said "this confirms that the party has justified the trust of the electorate and that its rating is growing despite regime pressure".

Seselj's most effective public appearance was while the SPS parliament deputies were rooting for him; they seemed happy to have a Praetorian Guard against the united opposition, rebelling students and "defeatists". His successes include toppling federal president Dobrica Cosic and the purges in the Yugoslav Army (VJ) general staff just because the SPS didn't want to get their hands dirty.

An IDN poll in April and May 1993, the first time Milosevic indicated a possible turnabout in Bosnia (accepting the Vance-Owen peace plan), one tenth of the polled said Seselj and the SRS could be the initiators of a civil war; 21.8% of the polled in Montenegro were of the same opinion.

The authorities' attempt to "replace Seselj" at the 1993 elections by introducing Zeljko Raznjatovic Arkan's Party of Serb Unity failed. Arkan had lots of money but his poor vocabulary accounted for just 40,000 of Seselj's voters.

Seselj's political exhibitionism was not "psychiatric" but manipulatory; he hid his education and simplified his messages although he took care not to earn a "White Rose", i.e. he voiced hostility for the self-proclaimed Serb fascists and other rightist outsiders by declaring them mental cases.

It seems things got increasingly serious for him and the stakes too high.

Nikolic claimed on December 5 that there were indications that the federal government intended to hand Seselj over to the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague, and added that they would demand he stand trial in the Hague not in Belgrade, because "the Yugoslav legislature is in the hands of the Internal Affairs Ministry and depends on Milosevic's decisions". In the meantime, the authorities didn't launch a propaganda campaign which would indicate their intentions.

The Radicals are bragging that they could unite the opposition. Nikolic said on January 19, Beta news agency reported, that the SRS "has reached an agreement with the SPO, DS and DSS on initiating proceedings to topple Milosevic". There was no enthusiastic support from the other parties. When the Socialists said they would change the election law at local level into a single round play-off, the SRS was the first to voice the idea of a united opposition. Zoran Djindjic (DS leader) later spoke of a "technical coalition", which Vojislav Kostunica (DSS leader) supported as "necessary in these conditions". Finally, Vuk Draskovic said the SPO would submit its proposal in writing.

Once out of jail, Seselj will have to deal with the rift in his own party first. While he was in jail a dissident group of Radicals formed their own federal deputy group whose president Jovan Glamocanin said a founding assembly would be held on January 27 (just two days before Seselj was due to get out of jail) to form the new Nikola Pasic Serb Radical Party. A postponement could come about only because of negotiations with the Radical Party of Serbia which the dissidents might join.