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Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic has summoned all parliamentary parties last Tuesday (May 20) for consultations on the draft law on local self-government. The reactions over the summons were diverse: the Socialists (Vucelic) accepted the invitation with enthusiasm, the Radicals announced that they never avoid a dialogue (Vucic); The Democratic Party of Serbia - DSS - (Kostunica) having examined the draft, announced that they shall not attend the consultation talks; the Democrats (Djindjic) and the Civil Alliance of Serbia GSS (Vesna Pesic) announced that they shall attend only in order to look into the government's true intentions; while the Serbian Renewal Party SPO (Vuk Draskovic) announced that their party has better things to do than to "drink coffee with Marjanovic" insisting that the election issues be discussed at a round table. All in all, the Prime Minister's invitation leaves the following dilemma open - did that invitation come from "Gonzales's package" or from the package of the ruling party's special intentions which usually pass laws against things which have already happened to it.

There are three essential novelties in the draft law on local self-government. One pertains to the composition and the operation of government bodies in mixed regions, the second to the changes of the electoral system on the local level, and the third to precisely defining the controlling role of the ministries over local self-management.

In places where national minorities make up the majority population, the municipal assembly is made up of two councils: one has the representatives of the national minority, and the other the Serbs and the Montenegrins. The representatives of these councils take turns for the position of municipal president and are replaced every month. It is believed that 42 such municipalities exist (Kosovo, Vojvodina, Sandzak, Dimitrovgrad) in which the national minorities make up the majority. What is certain is that in the public debate the problem of political representation of the minority groups will crop up in the municipalities in which they make up a significant percentage yet not a majority of the population.

The number of electoral units in the municipalities is otherwise determined by the municipal assembly; however, the legislature forsees that three to five MP's are elected from each electoral unit.

The political parties or coalitions suggest possible candidates, 30 signatures are gathered for each MP candidacy, and the election result is calculated by the system of the largest quotient. The electoral procedure has been simplified in the draft law - the bodies which conduct the elections are the electoral committee and the municipality's electoral commission. The municipal court is authorized for all appeals which makes its decision in a council, according to the procedure foreseen for administrative disputes. The court decision is final and no future court proceedings can be held against it. The Socialists stress that most of the new solutions actually follow Gonzales's suggestions, which is true in the part which pertains to the procedure of verifying the election results since the previous law had some serious faults in that sense and enabled manipulations.

According to the local self-government draft law which has 223 articles, the municipality is authorized to adopt a program of development, an urban development plan, a budget, and an annual balance sheet to enable the operations of public utility services and infrastructure, to construct and maintain local roads and streets, to construct schools, maintain cultural institutions, protect the environment, water, etc. It can also establish institutions in the public information field. The law regulates which revenue sources finance the municipality's needs (the citizen's agricultural tax, 5 percent from their salaries, inheritance tax, real estate sales tax, property tax, sales tax...). In case the minimum amount as defined by the law for financing a municipality is not amassed in such a manner, the rest is supplied from the republican budget.

Otherwise, according to information uncovered by VREME's journalist, in the initial analysis after the elections the Socialists listed the fact that their people in the government did not make sure that the electoral system at the local level was changed in due time as one of the main reasons for losing power in the larger cities. During the "time of the whistles" the Socialists kept saying at their closed sessions that none of it would have occurred if the "local law" had been changed on time.

The opposition has reason to doubt that this part of the law is intended to oust them from the city assemblies which they have now won. Certain calculations show that the November results on the local level would have given the Socialists a much more favorable position if the proportional electoral system had been implemented.

The Democratic Party spokesman Slobodan Vuksanovic told VREME that it was now "obvious that the Socialists, with the help of the Radicals and the electoral proportional system are trying to block the operation of municipal and city assemblies, since it is now obvious to them that they will never again be able to win by the other, majority system". "Still, they wouldn't be able to win in many municipalities even with the new electoral law which they have prepared; however, they could block and hinder the constitution of the assemblies. All points towards the Socialists' and Radicals' irresponsibility. They are looking for a certain alibi to deprive what little jurisdiction has remained in the municipalities. What they would like best would be to totally annul the municipalities. They would even annul the republic if they lost the elections on that level."

The government is obviously suggesting a local law according to the same standards by which it has thus far suggested the two laws on information - it is trying to avoid negotiations and a debate on the vital topics which pertain to fair elections.