Together and Vice Versa

The Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) addressed recently a written proposal to the Democratic party (DS) suggesting the creation of a public agreement on respecting the results from the elections of 1993 and sharing the mandate so that half take SPO and GSS and the other half DS and DSS. In this way, the coalition would be programmatic and valid at all levels. Numerous community boards of SPO and DS sent open messages to their leaders to sign the contract on the coalition at all levels. Such agreement is concluded in Novi Sad at the city level. Then DS allowed the leak-out of its counter-proposal which stipulates the same division of mandates - but the coalition would be technical, and no local levels are mentioned.

On August 27th at 12 A.M., the speaker of SPO Ivan Kovacevic "greets" the fact that DS has accepted the proposal of SPO at federal level, and expresses "regrets" that DS has not accepted the coalition at local level and that it hesitates in Cacak, Kraljevo and Obrenovac where SPO had better results. Supposedly, the agreements are reached in 50 communities, but there are still 130 left. Within the model of 50:50, the advantage in communities has the party which was stronger in 1993. The coalition "Together", which had rallies from Belgrade to Arilje, in fact does not exist until the expiration of ultimatum of 24 hours to DS. The Novi Sad’s board of SPO "freezes" its contract with DS until the conclusion of the general contract.

Kovacevic (as well as Vuk Draskovic in some of his statements and community boards of SPO in previous days) repeats the request that the mutual list shall not include the politicians that have transferred from SPO to DS. Milan Paroski who advocates extremist policy, stresses that Djindjic has unofficially accepted that condition, and now he refuses to sign. Djindjic has resisted negotiations on the list of representatives for a long time, justifying his attitude by the sovereignty and the statute of his party. However, the same day (August 27th), at their off-schedule press conference three hours after the press conference of SPO, the democrats announced that four of DS’s candidates -that SPO objects to- withdraw their candidacy (Dragoslav Milicic, Mihajlo Markovic, Vladan Gajic and Milan Paroski, and they suppose the same could happen to Branko Veselinovic, who has not been mentioned as "unwanted" up to now).

In order that nothing goes smoothly and without some conditioning, and considering they did a favor that could not be rejected, democrats had to fire up a small ultimatum: That SPO in 24 hours breaks up the coalition with SPS in the communities of Stari Grad and Savski Venac and disavows itself from the statement made by Milan Bozic, SPO’s representative and political adviser of the party’s president, on the supposed readiness of SPO to negotiate with SPS.

Konvacevic, at the press conference, and Bozic, in the interview with the journalists of Vreme, say that the statement was misinterpreted and that it had a conditional formulation - if it was to be negotiated with the socialists, the negotiations were not to be on mandates but on strategic issues, etc. Kovacevic also says that SPO will inform the public if and when it starts negotiations with SPS - at the Trg slobode or some other place; that is to say, when the authorities panic due to the public pressure.

The Citizens Union (GS) has tried to mediate between democrats and SPO and in addition, has tried to arrange meetings of alienated leaders in their premises, stating that it is possible to overcome the differences. They say relations should be regulated at all levels in order to avoid disputes over creating lists.

Amidst all this fuss, however, the Democratic party sneaked almost unnoticed into the team of "Together". All of the participants, without and controversy at all, behaved as though Kostunica was "in the class". It was announced that the DSS’s main board will be notified about the proposal for signing the coalition.

This means that the two major disputes (surrounding DSS and the dissident SPO) are nevertheless resolved. It is actually convenient for Djindjic and Draskovic to be stronger together, regardless to what their actions would be afterwards. That is why their trade-off could go on even after the deadlines quoted in various ultimatums pass. Formally, the main board will decide on everything (of DS on August 31st and September 1st, and of SPO on September 7th), but they can authorize the respective leaders to continue negotiations until October 3rd.

Journalists did not get the answer to the question who and when would resolve this confusion. And if they continue to be "together" like this, the answer could be: "Slobodan Milosevic on November 3rd!"