Manuevers in the Shelter

Those press reports (probably compiled from the notes of some SPS official present at the session), don’t really shed light on what Milosevic really wanted to tell his people. Probably he intended to shake them up, encourage them and convince them that things aren’t as bleak as they seem as well as remind them that the real match is later this year during the republican elections when the real fight for power will take place.

There are indications that the Serbian president will try to find a way out of the worst crisis his regime has ever faced by taking the initiative. A few spectacular personnel changes, a reshuffle of the government and announcements of serious economic reforms might make the local election fraud and protests across Serbia fade away, at least according to the plans of the SPS leaders. A lot of changes will take place inside the ruling party so that the once powerful party can take the initiative. Elections could come soon at every level of the SPS and the latest SPS main board session mentioned the word differentiation, once very popular in the party. As for the events on the streets nothing will change: "soft repression" against the demonstrators when necessary, "small concessions, diplomatic dithering to drag the whole story out and perhaps even acceptance of the Gonzales report in the end but in a way that can be interpreted as the result of foreign pressure and the good will of the Socialists, not as a concession and withdrawal in the face of "fifth column" opposition demands".

An SPS official told VREME that the consolidation of the party ranks will take place primarily through elections inside the party wherever the party lost the local elections. Right now, everyone in the SPS is analyzing what happened over the past few months and are blaming each other. The party chiefs are saying the local elections were lost in the big cities because of the failures of local party chiefs. Gorica Gajevic, the SPS general secretary, told the main board session that the elections were lost in some places because some SPS and JUL members didn’t grasp the importance and essence of the joint election list but fought against each other. She also complained that "some candidates weren’t the right ones" and some she blamed for spending more time in their cabinets than they spent campaigning.

At the same time, lower ranks are blaming party chiefs, mainly Gajevic and Nikola Sainovic, claiming their incompetence was the main cause of the election failure.

At present, only the people who stuck out most have been purged: Nis SPS chief Mile Ilic for shameless fraud at the elections and Belgrade Mayor Nebojsa Covic for speaking openly about the fraud. Both expulsions from the SPS were later placed in the context of "creating unity and strength in the party".

The example of Serbian PTT director Milorad Jaksic shows that many in the SPS have reason for anxiety. Jaksic was known as a powerful and reliable SPS man and he was dismissed from his post the day the PTT issued a statement saying it had bought 10% of Politika newspaper publisher shares (5.1 million DEM). Jaksic was dismissed by the Serbian government but VREME sources said the rumor in the SPS was that he had done something horribly wrong. That does not mean Jaksic won’t be given some other influential post soon because there are many examples of that in the SPS. At the same time, many directors of important SPS controlled companies have lost their good reputations, especially after newspaper reports that burglars stole "150,000 DEM and large amounts of gold" from their homes. When that happens in combination with local election failure at a moment when all authorities-controlled institutions are showing serious signs of erosion, the best thing to do is start a party purge with the people who stand out in any way.

Ognjen Pribicevic of Belgrade’s Social Sciences Institute recently told VREME that many people who no longer need the SPS or JUL will soon speak up. "The ruling elite in the SPS and JUL will face a situation when an increasing number of profiteers among the state leaders will defend their own existence. They will no longer be interested in Milosevic, only in their personal survival and business. Suddenly, they will no longer care what he thinks," Pribicevic said.

The average SPS official, can hardly predict whether the Belgrade city assembly will be constituted or not and who will hold a majority of seats in it. The SPS leaders haven’t changed their stand that "the opposition must not get Belgrade". In the meantime, the whole mess, primarily the legal mess, is going in the direction of an imposed management of the city. February 4 is the deadline to constitute the city assembly. Covic is persistently saying he can only call a session of the city assembly elected on November 17, and that means a Zajedno majority. The city election commission has to verify the councilors’ mandates and it does not seem to be planning to change its mind. Time is running out and Belgrade is getting very close a management imposed by the Serbian government.

"That solution was mentioned at our latest meetings although I can’t exclude the possibility of the party leaders deciding on something else at the last moment," an SPS source said. "What I do know for certain is that Covic ruined everything when he betrayed us in Belgrade. If he had called an assembly meeting early in December when we asked him to, there would be no one on the streets by now. The new assembly would be on the Serbian state TV every day, working diligently and everything would be forgotten. Just like New Belgrade. They protested there for only three days after the municipal assembly was constituted."

Covic can’t be the only person to blame for Belgrade. Serbian Democratic Party (DSS) leader Vojislav Kostunica said Belgrade is an example of how internal and outside pressure affected Milosevic. If he had tried to grab Belgrade through the courts Milosevic would have burned all his bridges opened a Pandora’s box releasing what politicians call "unforeseeable consequences", Kostunica said.

Debates inside the SPS show that party members are prepared to break off with New Democracy (ND). Party leaders told their members that the phantom December 1 parliament group is just waiting to step in and replace the ND and its ministerial posts but that the party leaders are still thinking about it. The SPS main board debate showed that no one is allowed to dig into relations with JUL. Some main board members who tried to raise that topic were told by Radmilo Bogdanovic that there’s nothing to discuss.

Recent steps are confusing everyone, even leftist party members. For example, Serbian deputy prime ministers promised protesting students that their demands would be met and that becomes the news of the day on radio Belgrade’s three o’clock news but is later completely disregarded on that station; despite public promises that the Belgrade university rector will resign the university council kept him in place through a secret ballot and extended the crisis; just a day after the justice ministry claimed the Gonzales fact-finding mission got things wrong in several towns, FRY President Zoran Lilic attended a closed session of the SPS main board and wanted the complete report adopted and respected; a few days later, the Socialists constituted the Smederevska Palanka town assembly although the Gonzales report said they lost the elections there; the police blocked central Belgrade for days to prevent students from marching and later let them walk through the city whenever they want.

Part of the explanation could lie in what SPS MP Radovan Radovic said a few years ago about his party: "We’re a team that always wins because we have fighters and organizers".

Things seems to have changed in the meantime. The organizers can’t be seen and the fighters aren’t the achievers they once were.