Zajedno - Dragoslav Avramovic

Unofficially, the deal has been made and Avramovic will go public very soon with clear arguments - the coming elections are a decisive moment in stopping social misery and getting the country started on the road to serious reforms and, as he said, when the homeland is at stake no one has the right to be ill or old. Not even Avramovic whose political activities are opposed openly and fiercely only by his wife who says he’s a fool if he gets involved in any way.

Although not publicly yet, the leaders of the ruling party are on Mrs. Marija Avramovic’s side but their reasons are completely different. Mrs. Avramovic is worried about her husband’s frail health while the SPS feel Avramovic at the head of Zajedno could upset routine preparations for the elections. The Socialists concluded long ago that a fourth victory this November is certain because of disunity in the opposition even with the current strikes and protests. Avramovic’s appearance on the political scene upsets their plans and turns the most boring elections into an interesting event.

If he does agree to join Zajedno, Avramovic will be the third Joker in the opposition deck to date in its efforts to topple the Milosevic regime. Crown Prince Aleksandar Karadjordjevic was the first in 1991 when he came to the country he had never seen, waking opposition hopes that the Socialists could be ousted with calls for a monarchy and the Karadjordjevic dynasty. The welcome the Crown Prince got was spectacular with an estimated 200,000 people gathered to see him. Soon afterwards it turned out that the Crown Prince was not as big in terms of political capital as the opposition expected.

Late in 1992, the opposition backed Milan Panic, a US businessman and then federal prime minister. Panic was also the regime’s joker as prime minister but soon showed ambitions of endangering the Serbian president. The 1.6 million votes Panic won at the Serbian presidential elections in December 1992 (with a campaign of just 10 days) are also the opposition’s biggest success to date.

Avramovic now is in the same place Panic was (in terms of popularity) in September 1992 when he first indicated that he could head the opposition. Up to that moment, Panic enjoyed vast popularity as federal prime minister but as soon as he made his announcement the regime media launched a campaign against him. Similar campaigns were used to destroy anyone who was in the way of the Milosevic regime. Panic was labeled a traitor and American spy and soon lost his popularity. July polls by the Medijum agency showed that Avramovic is now "absolutely the most popular figure in the country" and probably the most suitable figure to serve as the opposition joker. His agreement to the offer makes him a target for the regime media. In his case, the campaign will include the heavyweights of the propaganda machine who will try to demonize the expert who left impressive results behind him.

Medijum director Srbobran Brankovic told VREME that he is skeptical about the regime’s jokers even figures like Avramovic. Brankovic said the level of control over the media and the fact that the authorities hold all the levers of power means no joker is strong enough. He feels that "they would manage to make even Jesus seem like the devil". Brankovic said the fact that the opposition is constantly searching for someone to head it and fill in the gaps they left behind shows the extent of its weakness.

"Opposition leaders include a lot of petty people with no vision or idea who couldn’t rise up and pull everyone along like Walesa did in Poland," Brankovic said.

An almost identical opinion is shared by psychologist Zarko Trebjesanin who thinks the endless search for a joker is actually the most elegant way for the opposition to get out of the internal struggle for power dictated by its leaders. "At the moment, the opposition is trying to use a different type of leader to topple the current leader. Everything began here when someone said Serbia is tired of leaders and ended up with one anyway. The opposition is relying on this solution not just because it has to stand behind a figure who enjoys indisputable popularity but also because the opposition parties are organized on similar authoritarian principles. The entire opposition is based on the leader cult which is evident in their intolerance for factions within their parties," Trebjesanin said.

Despite the validity of those objections, Avramovic, in the opposition’s view, is almost the ideal opponent to the authorities, with charisma capable of facing off with Milosevic’s charisma. Unlike the two previous jokers Avramovic can’t be described as a foreigner who can’t even speak his own language properly. This is a man who has a talent for communication, he’s uncomplicated, charming and witty and that has earned him two public relations awards. Avramovic also has the credentials of an expert and he’s remembered as "the man who tamed hyperinflation". Although he hasn’t been a favorite of the authorities for months, Avramovic is still the superman and the man who gave rise to hope in the eyes of ordinary people (mainly thanks to the regime media). All that shows that he is a man who will be much harder to demonize and whose popularity would drop at a much slower rate than Panic’s. The propaganda machine would have to invest much greater efforts in his case.

"From a marketing point of view, the situation is not unknown and falls into the propaganda category usually called "transfer of emotions", Ivan Stajnberger told VREME. Stajnberger is director of the Belgrade branch of Saatchi & Saatchi. Just as soccer player Dejan Savicevic and film director Emir Kusturica draw certain emotions which are transferred to the products they advertise, this is an attempt by some parties or a coalition to find the right figure to identify and transfer emotions. In this specific case, the joker also shows that the coalition does not include another figure strong enough to advertise the product. The ruling party has a figure and the others have to search for a charisma that draws positive reactions. The better the choice of figure, the greater the chances of success. Avramovic is undoubtedly a figure that can pull them forward but that transfer of emotions usually works both ways and sometimes both are lost," Stajnberger said.

One of the main differences between Avramovic and Panic as opposition jokers is the political moment. The differences between the authorities and the opposition that backed Panic and the opposition that is now backing Avramovic were much more fierce a few years ago. In the autumn of 1992, the position of the Socialists was that "war is a lower stage in the development of peace", i.e. that Serbia won’t bow to anyone. Panic offered peace at once and urged the recognition of Bosnia and other parts of the former Yugoslavia. Today the differences are much smaller; everyone has advocated peace for a long time and everyone has advocated privatization in some way with differences only in the extent and way to do it.

"Recent polls showed that the economy ranks high but that most people see crime as the biggest problem," Brankovic said. "That shows that we still lack awareness that healthy economic policies have to be implemented. Average voters still believe there is a conspiracy around us that it’s enough to arrest a few criminals. There’s also the possibility of manipulating people but the focus of the campaign is slowly moving to the economy. The Socialists know that and they discovered that Belgrade lies on the Sava river and that the 21st century will be here in four years."

What hasn’t changed and isn’t good for the opposition efforts to change the regime is that the always dominant feeling among voters is that the only real virtues in politics are power and slyness. Regardless of how much he seems to be the ideal opposition joker, Avramovic does not fall into that category. Not just because of his health and age but because he was always far from the military and police, the authorities and media. Many people feel that power and control of the media, police and military are the only real political joker.

Panic and Avramovic share the opinion that "it isn’t important how many times a man falls but how many times he got up to fight again" and that is probably their greatest similarity. Unlike Panic, Avramovic’s failure would mean the definite end to the political struggle of everyone who relied on jokers.