Fighting For Belgrade

"We don’t need melancholic intellectuals, some Serb Havel, we don’t need Panic, we need Margaret Thatcher. I still don’t see anyone like that"

When he gave an interview to VREME last November, two days prior to the second round of local elections, Democratic Party (DS) leader Zoran Djindjic wasn’t too convinced that the Zajedno coalition (after its fiasco at the federal elections) would be able to rise again and win Belgrade or that he would soon become the city’s first opposition mayor since 1945. In that interview, Djinjdjic claimed (hypothetically) that it would be very good for the opposition to win Belgrade first and start shaking the system from there.

This interview with Zoran Djindjic was completed just two days before he was due to take the post of Belgrade mayor. In the meantime, the system really has started shaking seriously, not only because of Belgrade but because of virtually all the cities and bigger towns in Serbia. The system even seems to have cracked just like Djindjic’s voice after 88 days of rallies in an effort to reinstate opposition election wins.

Before Djindjic takes his post we should recall a story sources close to the DS told before the elections: Jacques Chirac was mayor of Paris twice before he became the French president. Djindjic is not setting his sights that far yet. He prefers to talk about an "exemplary rule" of Belgrade. "When we spoke last time, Belgrade was just a potential experimental showcase. The question then was whether we could organize that showcase so people could see what Serbia would be like if the opposition were in power," Djindjic said.

 

VREME: Has everything finally been cleared up about your candidacy for mayor? Your coalition partners claim they found out that you were a candidate for mayor from the press.

 

DJINDJIC: "I think there’s no dispute there and everything is very logical. I’m the only Zajedno leader who ran in the local elections and that was a very clear sign that my ambitions are tied to Belgrade. About two weeks before the elections I said I would run for mayor. That means that everyone in Zajedno who had that ambition could have done the same. I said several times before the elections that the most important thing for the DS are the local elections. That was the DS election campaign strategy. It would be highly illogical now if someone said let’s forget that, let’s see if we’ll support you or not if there is no support there is no coalition.

 

VREME: You probably heard the story that the Socialists launched which goes, the night after the elections Milosevic said the opposition has no pilot for the Belgrade jumbo jet. Are you that pilot?

 

DJINDJIC: "As usual, Milosevic was highly hypocritical. If he really thought we didn’t have a pilot he would have let us have Belgrade right away. He’s afraid that we can turn a wreck into a jumbo jet. That’s why he took the huge risk of annulling the elections. When it takes power in Belgrade the opposition becomes legal and removes the image of semi-legality that has dogged it. The next elections in Belgrade will see people choose between two authorities - the republican and the city authorities. When people voted for the republican and federal authorities in 1992, choosing between Milosevic and Panic, they voted for Panic. There was no election control then and that’s a different issue, but we know that most people voted for Panic then and wouldn’t have voted for him if he hadn’t been federal prime minister. Milosevic remembers that well. He knows he has been telling people that they have the authorities and intruders so choose between them. Now we’re on the scene telling people they have the authorities in the form of Mirko Marjanovic and another set of authorities in Belgrade, Nis and Novi Sad. That is an essential change in the quality of the elections and Milosevic is right to worry. If he’s really worried about his best pilots, all he has to do is take a look at Sainovic, Dragan Tomic and the other incompetents. They are pilots who wouldn’t know how to push a toy plane around."

VREME: From you present position, what’s your assessment of what former Belgrade mayor Nebojsa Covic did?

DJINDJIC: "I wouldn’t want to view him in the light of what he did when he stopped being mayor. That would be too just for him. Covic was an SPS fighter and one of the most belligerent members of that party. I’m sorry he has forgotten that and is behaving like Nelson Mandela now as if some injustice was committed against him when he was thrown out of the SPS although the same thing happened to many others while he was still in the party. The city served as a stage to promote people under him more than as the focus of some policy.

In reality, Belgrade doesn’t have a mayor but a city assembly president. Ambitious people in the SPS turned that into the post of mayor with the intention of turning that person into a candidate for Serbian president or prime minister. I don’t see what was done so well in the city in the past few years. If we look at the collecting of debts from various construction companies, if we take a look at the gray emission of money in the city, how many buses were promised and not bought, if we take all that into consideration, I think the result is fairly low."

 

VREME: Regardless of your opinion, some people say it won’t be easy filling Covic’s shoes. They say he knew how to get money for the city. If city transport is short he phones the post office and fills the gap. How will you fill those gaps?

 

DJINDJIC: "We’ll see about that. For now that is a political balance of powers. We’ll see what the real income is in Belgrade and how much of that income is left. Two or three years ago, Belgrade kept about 50% of its earnings, now it keeps less than 20%. If we realize that Belgrade can’t support itself from that we’ll do something to keep part of the income in town. We’ll use political pressure if we have to. There’s no way we’ll let the city die because the law says we have to turn the money over to the republic. We’ll define city priorities and keep the income we need, whether the republican government likes it or not. We’ll risk a political clash over that but people will know everything. We’ll see how much money the city needs to solve its problems and we’ll ask its residents whether they want us to turn the money over to Mirko Marjanovic or use them for the city. If they say they want them for the city that’s what we’ll do. In a disorderly state such as Serbia, there is no mercy because the balance of political forces decides and I hope that we are strong enough to fight for the rights of Belgrade."

 

VREME: In all the places the opposition won, the real power is very small. How will you explain that fact to the people who expect a lot from you?

 

DJINDJIC: "We’ll have Studio B (local Belgrade TV and radio). We’ll have an opportunity to address everyone in Belgrade. We’ll also have official city bodies which always enjoy some authority with the people. When we say something as the opposition we can believe it or not but when an official body does something, they believe it. We’ll tell people who owes money, who’s taking the taxes that are being collected in Belgrade and I hope that will mobilize people on those issues."

 

VREME: You said you’ll have Studio B. Your coalition keeps saying that Studio B must not be an opposition station, but an independent news desk. Can your intentions be trusted. There are claims that you’ve already formed a new Studio B desk.

 

DJINDJIC: "No. No way. We’ll talk to the management board, the director and editor-in-chief. Our condition is for the editor-in-chief to be a staff member and not a member of any party. Also, there’s a public consensus on that person whose duty will be to restore order in that station. But, we know more or less everything about that since Studio B has drawn public interest for a long time. Studio B is our first credibility test. If we fail that test, people won’t trust us with other things. There’s no way that the editor-in-chief of Studio B can be a political figure from any party. The station director should be a manager, someone who can bring in money and enable the return of the station to shareholders."

 

VREME: At the last Zajedno rally, the coalition gave the authorities until March 9 to start freeing the media. What will you do if the regime doesn’t accept that? What are your chances of sustaining or restoring the energy of the people for the protest?

 

DJINDJIC: "That energy will double. I will demonstrate together with people in front of the state TV like we did for 88 days. That protest will have a different, clear profile with the goal of unblocking the state media. We will demonstrate in front of the state TV every day starting on March 9. In the meantime, all city and town assemblies will be constituted in places we won the local elections. Our position will be incomparably better than on November 17. It will be much harder for the police to beat up members of the city government, the mayor, members of the management boards of public companies. I personally believe that Milosevic and his people should do something before March 9 because they will face a much more difficult situation than during these 88 days."

 

VREME: The impression is that you’ve all become a little nervous in the coalition before taking power and arguments have broken out. What’s that about, the vanity of the leaders, the fight for power or is it perhaps a fear of what you spent 88 days fighting for?

 

DJINDJIC: "It’s natural anxiety when something that was running its course now has to be frozen and stop. It’s a question of starting positions for a new stage and everyone’s eyeing their place. The way we led the protest is my responsibility. It was a form of protest that was not customary for the opposition in Serbia. My approach was that we can’t stand up to the regime in terms of use of force and that every situation of that kind means we loose. I said that we have to go to another extreme and choose situations in which violence is senseless and push the regime off-balance. I was sure that Milosevic couldn’t take it for long. There were several unknown things. First, the endurance of the people, then the support of the western media and their exhaustion, possible repression, the possibly of arrests and killings. In the first days of the protest that concept won and it had no opponents for the duration. I knew that if it failed I would be to blame. When it succeeded everyone forgot that things weren’t that simple and said let’s share what we won. The most important thing now is the next stage which has to be as well planned as the previous stage. Just as we managed to stay calm on November 18, refrained from doling out seats and arguing, we now have to draw up a strategy how to save what we have. Many people forget that we started the protests on November 18. Nothing had been annulled then. We knew that they would annul the election results. We began a hunger strike in the Serbian parliament after the elections were annulled. If we had done nothing during that first week, things would have been much more difficult later. Luckily, we know the Socialists and Milosevic better than they know themselves. That’s our advantage. All we need to do is suppress our passions, remain cool and success is guaranteed."

 

VREME: What will you personally do as mayor so people won’t say they’ve been in power for six months and the only thing they’ve shown is that they’re as greedy as the Socialists, and that they just envied the Socialists for being in power.

 

DJINDJIC: "I’ll make them realize that I’m honestly trying to do something. Everyone will know that where we fail it won’t be because we didn’t try, because we’re incompetent, but because we ran into obstacles. After a time you can easily see if someone is talking of equality and stuffing money into their pockets. The world is small, not only Serbia, we all know who has an account in which bank, who has money and how they earned it. When those suspicions creep in, everything’s over."

 

VREME: Earlier, you advocated the idea of the most responsible people in the opposition taking responsibility at local level. Some appointments in the Zajedno power-sharing scheme are already not enjoying the people’s trust.

 

DJINDJIC: "In terms of the DS, I can only say that we named absolutely the best people we had to key posts. I believe firmly that the credibility of party officials has to be proved in places the party is in power. Power is a reality. Someone can be a good piano theoretician but once he sits down at the piano and can’t play no one gets any pleasure. Our position is to see who can play. As for our coalition partners, we reached an agreement relatively early that we can’t interfere in that policy. There were some disputes over that but since the coalition could have broken apart on that issue, we said we would accept all proposals by our coalition partners without comment."

 

VREME: You said recently that some things have to be accepted for the sake of the coalition’s survival and that this is the normal price to pay. How much are you and the others prepared to pay?

 

DJINDJIC: "I’ve been paying since the coalition was formed. Many people think I am a bad trader. Many were disappointed and dissatisfied with the way we formed the coalition. They said I made concessions all the time and that the party lost every time. I am convinced that isn’t true and that this is all an investment. That investment brought much more than I personally expected. I’ve made several investments in my political career. One is the Bosnian Serb Republic (RS) and that is a national issue. I expect that investment to bring some political results in the future. I am indifferent to the price, I accept it easily even the damage I suffered in an international context because of it. The second investment are my ties to the West. I suffered the damage in Serbia because they can now say he’s a German spy also means little to me. This is an investment which will be very good for Serbia and the authorities I am part of. Knowing important elements in world politics is an advantage. The third thing is joining the coalition. Many people believe that was pure adventurism. To me that was the only way to get some things moving. As long as some things are moving, I am prepared to sacrifice my comfort."

 

VREME: Ideas are being voiced to turn the coalition into a single party before the next elections?

 

DJINDJIC: "We don’t have the time or the opportunities to promote the name of that new party. I prefer using the positive emotions which are linked to the names of the existing parties. I wouldn’t like the DS to disappear. Also, I don’t believe that new party could be called the DS. That means we would loose what spent 6-7 years achieving and I’m not sure we could transfer it all to the new organization. I’m not thinking of that at the moment and it’s enough for this to be an election alliance specialized in democratizing Serbia while we wait for new developments and see if there is any need to form a new party for something in the future. Maybe others will join the alliance or maybe we’ll have a new situation in which everyone stands alone."

 

VREME: Why are you against naming a coalition candidate for the Serbian presidency?

 

DJINDJIC: "There are several reasons. If the media blockade stays in place along with the same election conditions, my advice is not to stand in the elections at all. If the media blockade is lifted, we’ll have a completely new situation with new conditions on the political market. We have to see who’ll do what then. Someone could rise up while others fall. It would a bad thing to name a candidate who could fall due to a mistake and loose any chance of winning. Also, we would have to stand behind that candidate who stands no chance of winning. We would bury ourselves along with him. There’s no agreement for us to say we agree in principle, the SPO insists on naming that candidate so we’ll let that stand. But if, the moment they do that, the public sees he has no chance, we hope they won’t name that candidate. If we define a candidate now it becomes an obligation and that’s why I’m against naming any specific person. Our goal is for our candidate to win or at least not to loose in the first round, a strong candidate. I really don’t care who the candidate is."

 

VREME: Your party is the source of the story about a Serb Havel.

 

DJINDJIC: "Not the party as a party, but individuals within the party. That isn’t a party stand. Nor do I believe we need a Havel. We’ve gone too far in our development to go back to Czechoslovakia 1990. We don’t need melancholic intellectuals in power."

 

VREME: Some people want a Havel, others seem to want a Serb Willi Brandt who would be capable of kneeling and begging forgiveness.

 

DJINDJIC: "In my opinion, we need a Margaret Thatcher. To say it a little cynically, we need someone strong-willed who wants to tell the people the truth, someone who will motivate them to work hard. There’s a stage of big business coming, not big stories and sentiments. Havel appeared early in the 90s when stories were needed, when western governments had to be brought to tears by a great writer and dissident getting out of jail. There are no tears any more or big stories. Now they want numbers, accounts and healthy logic. We need someone who will know how to tell the world what our interests are. We need a Benjamin Netanyahu. A man who will be tough and unpleasant but with integrity. A man who will be respected, who will clearly say where the line which we can’t cross in making concessions is. Our national and state interests are these. We offer credibility, reliability, we will be good partners but not at the expense of denying our interests. Let’s set up a good relationship in which our interests, the interests of the West, national minorities and citizens will be satisfied. That’s what we need."

 

VREME: Do you recognize anyone like that?

 

DJINDJIC: Not at the moment. That does not mean one of us can’t be that. There are no public conditions to bring that person out. We need a political market in which that person could show his abilities. That’s why I think we shouldn’t hurry."

 

VREME: Former federal Prime Minister Milan Panic said recently that he wants to return to politics here. What are his chances?

 

DJINDJIC: "Panic wouldn’t fit in. I don’t want to insult him, but he’s a cursory, good-natured man. Serbia today needs someone with much more punch. Someone with more muscle. Serbia needs someone who will really push through. Panic is valuable in other things but in the next period Serbia needs someone who will pull it out of the mud."

 

VREME: How will Milosevic interpret the Serbian constitution this year. What if he decides to disregard the constitution and run for president a third time?

 

DJINDJIC: "He won’t run. I don’t think so. In any case, he has two options. One is to continue the term that was interrupted in 1992. He can simply say that under the constitution he has the right to two mandates, a total of 10 years. He used up two mandates and a total of seven years, so he’s missing three years. That would draw a general laughter and disbelief. But, they could easily impose that interpretation through Ratko Markovic and other experts if that suits them. The second option is to go to the oasis of federal parliament where he has a majority which will be challenged in four years. At the last elections held without international observers and in the dark on November 3, Milosevic won a majority which guarantees him peace of mind for the next four years. That is much more interesting and attractive to him. In his place I would choose that option because it gives him an opportunity to fight politically. The other option leads him into international isolation, violation of the constitution and law."

 

VREME: Do you think Milosevic could regroup soon, consolidate his party and launch a counter-offensive?

 

DJINDJIC: "No, he has definitely lost his political energy. This a problem with his personal power now, not structures which can be renewed. He is no longer the man who can keep everything together. We see that on TV, in his speeches. He’s blown out. At one stage he was a builder who was superior and dominant. Since 1995, Milosevic has been on the defensive and today he’s just a shadow of his former self. He can still pull strings from a distance but he hasn’t got things under his control any longer. The entire structure rested on his energy. The loss of that energy means the destruction of the structure."

 

VREME: Polls show that he can still count on a third of the electorate. That’s about how strong Zajedno is. At the same time there are theories that a semi-dictatorial regime needs just 20% of the electorate to stay in power. The rest is achieved through manipulation.

 

DJINDJIC: The electorate is no longer decisive. Milosevic could get 90% of the vote but the question is if can he keep the system functioning. He doesn’t care whether he gets 20% or 70%. The question is whether there’s still life pulsing through the informal power structure he erected. It’s evident that it has fallen apart. When he took power in 1988, Milosevic decided to raise a facade under general European principles and do what he likes behind it. He decided that there would be a facade with the real things behind it: the police, media, finances, the real control. Now we see that there is no life left behind the facade.

The informal power structure everything was based on is falling apart. It’s impossible to regulate everything for so long with the primitive mechanisms of personal will, phone calls and smuggling. Milosevic has personally suffered several defeats: in Krajina, Bosnia and Serbia itself. He has realized that the world isn’t what he imagines it to be. His epoch is over, regardless of the number of votes he manages to attract. The problem now is how to finish this without damaging the people and himself. It would be a good thing for the future authorities if things ended legally, without even a trace of revolution which could motivate some potential revolutionaries to do the same.

The Danube and Markets

One day when I retire I would like people in Belgrade to remember me for something. I have two ideas which I think are worth working on. One is a standardization of the tourist offer in the Danube cities of Vienna, Budapest, Novi Sad and Belgrade. I discussed the creating of a Danube tourist zone with a single services standard in Vienna and Budapest. There is interest in that. That door for Belgrade’s opening to the West would be interesting. The construction of marinas, entertainment zones, would be on the principle of concessions without using our own money, with the investment of foreign companies.

My other idea is markets. Every city is recognized by its markets. I personally adore markets and Belgrade is fairly poor in that regard. Even in the older parts of the city you have to walk for half an hour to get to an open air market. Why shouldn’t there be 100 new markets in the city and they would finance themselves.