A Walking Campaign

"There they are," said one man pointing at the balcony of the Krusevac union hall. "The one in the yellow jacket is the JUL chief and there are the state TV camera crews filming for the police. They’ve got the press, radio and TV reporters there. They don't dare appear, they’re hiding behind the curtains."

If that is true and if they really did see and hear everything, leaders of the ruling party in Krusevac really do have cause for concern. Sunday was a day with bad weather but that didn’t prevent 10% of the 70,000 inhabitants of the town from showing up for the rally. Similar crowds gathered in Trstenik, Vrnjacka Banja and Kraljevo. In comparison, the opposition would have to attract at least 150,000 people n Belgrade to equal that and we know that would never happen.

Two days later, on Tuesday, October 22, the average was slightly lower due to rain in Sremska Mitrovica, Sabac and Valjevo. One reporter in Valjevo took a look at the not-very-impressive crowd of a few thousand wet and freezing people and said: "If it’s like this in the SPO capital, Valjevo, what’s it going to be like in Sabac where the Socialists have much stronger support?"

Times change and more people showed up in Sabac than in Valjevo and the mood was more cheerful despite the weather. The walls of the Socialist fortresses seem to be crumbling in this campaign. That also seems to be true in Uzice, Sabac and Trstenik.

That’s not a very reliable conclusion especially since opposition rallies are attended by people with different views as seen among the big crowd in Trstenik, a town believed to be a socialist bulwark.

Because of vast practical problems, Zajedno leaders and their activists do not travel in a convoy. Everyone takes their own car and meets at prearranged places but they get together on the stage for the first time due to technical reasons.

The opposition campaign has run into the customary tricks by local authorities: speeding tickets, torn posters and proscribed places to hold rallies (fields in the suburbs not central squares). A ban was threatened in Nis but it never happened.

Besides clear program differences, the two coalitions also differ in the site of their activities: the SPS-JUL-ND coalition has time and space reserved on all TV channels and any hall. The opposition is left to stage rallies outside regardless of the weather and no one is complaining.