Are They Coming?

Accidently or not, those who would like to move to the far right and the far left in Serbia's political specter, recently made identical statements. The Serbian radicals printed posters and made a TV spot in which they claim confidently: "We Are Coming". JUL finally elected its leadership at a convention at the Belgrade "Sava" Center last week, after talking about it for months. JUL rallies 23 non-parliamentarian parties, and they too claim that "they are coming". (Accidently or not, the far Left and far Right used the same xenophobic arguments recently when the anti-Soros campaign started.)

The leftist message "we are coming" sounded a little less confident than Serbian Radical Party (SRS) leader Vojislav Seselj's slogan. New JUL President and theatrical producer Ljubisa Ristic said: "Many have gone to the other side. Many will come to us. Especially young people who know that the only realistic thing is to demand the impossible."

Prior to this, and after the promotion of the new JUL leadership, there was a lot of talk on who was coming and leaving, i.e over political transfers between the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and JUL. The topic was broached by the usually well-informed Dusan Mitevic who claims to be "a SPS member who is very close to JUL", or more simply, a man who enjoys the confidence of President Milosevic and his wife. In an interview to the Novi Sad-based "Svet" Mitevic claimed that the SPS, viewed from an objective and historical stand, faced a transformation. As someone who is not in the leadership and looks at things disinterestedly, Mitevic forecast that the leftist current in the otherwise stratified SPS, would "incline towards JUL and the Left", while those who refused to cooperate with the Left would remain in the SPS. Asked who would be in opposition then, Mitevic said briefly: "It depends on who goes where."

Even though he is very close to JUL, Mitevic wasn't present at the promotion of the JUL leadership at the "Sava" Center. Radmilo Bogdanovic and Ivica Dacic were the only ranking SPS figures present. Bogdanovic was photographed while congratulating President of the JUL Executive Committee Mirjana Markovic on her new post. "Borba" journalists asked Dacic how many SPS members had defected, and he replied: "Nobody from the SPS has gone over to JUL. Since JUL consists of a series of political parties of leftist orientation and intellectuals with leftist leanings, it is the right of every political individual to decide on whether or not he will join, so that in this case we cannot speak of transfers from one political party to another. We, in the SPS, are happy when the Left front is expanding, when other parties are formed, especially those which could play a significant role on the political scene. We would be very glad to see members of other parties of the Left in parliament."

A municipal SPS official told us that even though Mitevic's and Dacic's statements seemed contradictory at first, they were right to a certain extent. "It is true that some SPS members have defected to JUL. For example 'Metropol' director Slobodan Cerovic who has been elected to the JUL Executive Committee, a man we considered to be one of our mainstays. There was a time when he was mentioned as a very serious candidate for the post of SPS Municipal Committee President. 'Kluz' director Dragan Ilic was also believed to be a proven member, and he has been elected to the JUL Executive Committee. There will be others like them, but I don't believe that mass transfers will take place."

Sources close to the ruling party claim that it is possible to discern why Dacic said that the SPS was happy that the Left front was expanding. The SPS Main Committee recommendation that the forming of JUL should be regarded kindly, and not be tripped up at the beginning, arrived allegedly, from Slobodan Milosevic. This is why Dacic's words that the SPS "wasn't looking on the Left from a sectarian point of view" and that it would be desirable for parties of the Left to direct their future intellectual efforts against parties of the Right and the center and not against each, should be viewed as an interpretation of Milosevic's message. Asked to describe JUL and SPS relations, Ljubisa Ristic replied: "JUL is a confederation of various parties and associations. Those forces in the SPS which urge peace, and they are dominant, are welcome, and I support them. This is not the merging of one party into another".

A foreign journalist said that the inner JUL leadership (the Executive Committee with 31 members) was reminiscent of a Rotary Club, considering the great number of directors. It is interesting that a movement which insists so much on equality and the social moment should at the very beginning have to rely so heavily on the directorial structure, and this perhaps explains the fact that there is a hunt for directors on the Serbian political scene, who later, when steady party income is lacking, agree to a form of racket at the expense of their workers. In this respect JUL seems to be doing well. The JUL leadership believes that workers will flock to the movement at some later date.

According to many estimates, a political party which counts on a more serious parliamentary status must have at least 150,000 voters. There are views that JUL planners have given themselves this task with the goal of appearing as an important support and coalition partner of the "positive wing" in the SPS, in some future parliament.

To persuade at least 100,000 new persons to vote for JUL seems impossible in the present situation. In spite of Ljubisa Ristic's claims that JUL is starting on the political scene at a time when political changes are moving from the Right to the Left, anti-Communist sentiments, especially primitive ones, are still strong here. Ranking JUL official Ratko Krsmanovic and the most agile JUL member in the past few weeks, has gained a reputation for giving numerous and rigid statements. He found out that it is not easy to be a Communist today, not even a new one when he recently participated in the NTV Studio B program "This week's impressions". During the program an anonymous Chetnik called in (this wasn't heard by viewers) and said that he would kill him after the program. At the insistence of his advisor, Krsmanovic left Studio B only after a police escort had been secured.