Leftist Counterattack

The Serbian opposition leaders won’t be able to avoid joining in the state TV (RTS) debates for much longer. They also won’t be able to use the excuse of not wanting to sit at the same table with SPS members who aren’t at their level. That excuse was voiced as an allusion to Dusan Matkovic "who’s just a member of SPS executive board". Closed ruling party meetings have been working very hard to raise Matkovic’s level recently. The rumor is that the director of the Smederevo steelworks is being groomed to become an SPS deputy leader or even the party’s general secretary which will bring him into a position where the opposition leaders can’t refuse to talk to him about important issues prior to the elections because of his rank in the party.

Since Slobodan Milosevic as the president of Serbia has had his party leader status frozen, Matkovic’s promotion would make him a legitimate partner in talks with Draskovic, Djindjic, Pesic, Seselj and Kostunica regardless of what people think of his speaking abilities. The SPS understanding of the game was best explained long ago by MP Radovan Raka Radovic who said "we always win because we have a goon squad and organizers". Matkovic is certainly one of the goon squad.

The SPS coach seems to believe that the time is right for players like him. Matkovic was ordered to prevent the opposition leaders from talking too much in the TV debates, to get on Seselj’s nerves, interrupt constantly and sit with game organizer Ljubisa Ristic of JUL.

He’ll be much better at that job than SPS deputy leader Nikola Sainovic who could soon loose his post. Sainovic was one of the president’s close confidantes and spent a lot of time in Pale convincing the Bosnian Serbs to accept what Belgrade wanted. Those trips seemed more like an effort to discipline the Bosnian Serbs than the establishing of special relations.

Now that Milosevic has chosen to play as "the best Serb" and when he’s expecting support from Bosnia, Sainovic is no longer the right man for the job because he twisted the Bosnian Serbs’ arm once too many times.

The rumor in the SPS is that General Secretary Gorica Gajevic is also looking for a new job. Regardless of whether that rumor is reliable or not, Gajevic’s departure from her post will be no sensation. Many SPS members have been complaining that she’s not up to the job of leading party operative and has no real experience. She is also being criticized for not being flexible enough.

Many local SPS boards have criticized Sainovic and Gajevic for failures in the election campaign.

The greatest enigma for SPS members is the return of Milorad Vucelic. We know he’s been seeing Milosevic two or three times a week which is a privilege for the select few. At the same time, Milosevic isn’t revealing what his plans for Vucelic are. Sources inside the SPS are saying that he’ll be a presidential candidate or the new general secretary and the frontman for the coming elections or the savior of the Politika newspaper company which is sinking under Hadzi Dragan Antic.

SPS members are confused over the different dates announced for the elections. The entire party apparatus is geared to elections at the end of this year. That was agreed in December when the SPS leaders drew up a 28 point plan to consolidate their ranks. The plan says the SPS could consolidate its ranks and launch a counteroffensive by the end of this year. Serbian parliament Speaker Dragan Tomic said recently that there’s no need to hurry because the elections will be held late this year (November), denying rumors that they will be called for mid-year.

November elections are possible only if Milosevic does not take over as FRY president and if, for the first time ever, the parliamentary and presidential elections in Serbia are held separately. FRY President Zoran Lilic’s term expires on June 26 and if Milosevic decides to take his job Serbia will be left without a president. Under the constitution, a new president will have to be elected no later than September.

SPS activists were told they will stand with JUL in the elections but not as a party with one program but as coalition partners. In public, the most frequent rumor is that the SPS and JUL will unite early in May. Political analysts are saying that would mean Milosevic had shot himself in the foot and destabilized his own party. Serbian Liberal Party leader Nikola Milosevic said that would be more proof that the Serbian president "can’t even take care of his own political interests". A possible union of the two leftist parties would make Serbian Radical Party (SRS) leader Vojislav Seselj a happy man. An internal poll among the Socialists last year shows that 15% are prepared to turn to the SRS if the SPS merges with JUL.

Nebojsa Covic is also counting on something linked to the SPS-JUL merger. He’s preparing to promote his new Social Democrat party soon. Covic is counting on the many disappointed Socialists and fears the registration of his party could be delayed up to the next elections. A Belgrade weekly said recently that Covic could take 250,000 votes away from the SPS in Belgrade and Vojvodina. Covic is also the first SPS dissident who’s prepared to openly oppose his former party.

The SPS is completing its renewal of party personnel and has replaced local party leaders in all the bigger towns they lost to the opposition.

That will probably be followed by a counter strike. They said they’ll set up Socialist media in places they lost and where the local media are under Zajedno control. Last Monday night, a lot of luxury cars were parked in front of the SPS headquarters in Belgrade and a large number of regime media editors were in the building to get new orders. They’ve got a really gruesome job in store this year.

Last December, the SPS leaders concluded that the party had reached the maximum of votes it could win and would now look into an acceptable and profitable coalition which would assure a long-term rule.

That coalition isn’t in sight yet and the aces of the regime media are struggling to prove that the acceptable and profitable partner is JUL. Or perhaps the real trade-off isn’t in sight yet.

What we do know for sure is that the regime will make a number of small tactical concessions in the coming period, play at opening up the media, do its best to make life hell or the opposition municipalities and turn even the slightest mistake into a scandal. The regime will also try to break up the opposition block and stir up the vanity of some opposition leaders. The weaknesses of the Zajedno coalition are seen by the Socialists as their only real trump card in the coming elections.