No Eggs This Time

If nothing else, the September elections will be more exciting than all the previous ones. The disposition of forces is still not final, there is still time for certain positions to be changed, but it seems to me that the most important things are already well known. It would be incredible if SPO were not to join the Socialists and the Radicals in the elections, as it would be equally incredible if DS, DSS and others were to desist from a boycott after everything they said.

We also know that, barring a last minute surprise, the race for the President of Serbia will be lead by Zoran Lilic, Vuk Draskovic and Vojislav Seselj. At the same time no one among them will be President because they are all fake candidates. Lilic is there only so that Milosevic can continue to rule Serbia. Draskovic applied in lieu of Prince Aleksadar Karadjordjevic, who did not authorize him, but the former promised anyway that he will bring the crown back to Serbia, and immediately do away with the position of president. Seselj is not so selfish, but he also does not want to be president, but rather the director of a concentration camp.

However, the fact that none of the candidates will actually be president should in no way pose a problem in these elections being more interesting than all preceding ones. A race with three fake candidates is at least more uncertain than one with a real candidate. But of course, they do not all have equal chances. That is to say, when everything is based on a fake foundation, the candidate that is the most fake becomes the favorite, and that is Zoran Lilic. He has been chosen because he is the last one to whom it would seriously occur to take his role seriously and to begin acting the president.

Lilic’s campaign will certainly be all in the name of peace, continuity — a picture from which he will not detract. He will have difficulties saying anything in the first person singular, but well disposed voters will certainly overlook that detail. In any case, for a fake candidate it is better that he admit to that fact, and not try to appear real and to convince anyone that he will personally do this or that. I do not know if Lilic deserved such a fate, but it seems that when a man accepts once the role of false authority, he must act that role to the very end.

Vuk Draskovic is not quite such a fake candidate because he imagines himself as the real article, and the King as a symbol of power. Besides that, he himself could not decide alone about the return of the monarchy, nor would Prince Aleksandar answer his call to become the King of the Serbian Renewal Movement. Draskovic is not a real candidate more than anything because of his clear willingness to participate in elections with the condition that neither he nor his party will actually win.

I cannot explain why he is willing to accept that, and I believe that he will feel very sorry once he finds himself alone in the company of the Socialists and the Radicals. He will need great skill and energy to be able to deal with them, while he will have to level the most serious accusations at a fourth party, at the remnants of the opposition. Instead of taking something away from his electoral competition, he will have to strain himself to dissuade his sympathizers from a boycott. It is inevitable that he will give the impression of confusion and a lack of credibility. But if he continues to use the favors of those in power and continues to appear on television, he will dig himself a hole from which there is no getting out of. Draskovic will lose the fight against his old friends who are boycotting the elections and will only go to vote as if on his own political funeral.

The fact that Seselj is considered a serious candidate is in itself shameful and scandalous, but not illogical. There are two grim options around him, his own and that of Milosevic. Milosevic believes that he can endlessly let him go, and then restrain him, to place and than take off his fetters, while Seselj accepts that so long as his total score continues to climb. As he knows that Serbia has to be in even worse straits in order to accept him, Seselj is obviously placing an emphasis in his campaign on unpunished acts of aggression. At the same time, he skillfully and creatively adapts to local conditions the great historical experiences of coming to power of the blackest national demagogues and state terrorists.

In the coming elections it will become apparent that Milosevic made a "Devil’s Pact" with Seselj, according to which the Radicals will help the existing regime, in return for which it will lead Serbia toward the dire straits from which one day it will only wish to fall into Seselj’s lap. Therefore, the future of this country depends on whether that pact can be broken, and on whether the diabolical contraption can be taken apart. If these elections are perhaps the last chance for that, than a mass boycott is a better means that a game with no end in sight.

The greatest hope in a positive outcome in Serbia did not consist of a victory of Coalition Zajedno in local elections, but in the fact that so many people so persistently came out into the streets. During those days Milosevic only existed in the guise of a Police cordon, while Seselj was nowhere to be seen. Their pact was only broken at that moment. The damage from the dissolution of Coalition Zajedno is, of course, irreparable. But I still continue to believe that the idea of a boycott, which is based precisely on the will and energy which surfaced at that time, is still justified. Djindjic and others will point precisely to that, while Draskovic will paradoxically abandon his personal meeting manners at a time when they have proven more successful than ever.

An opposition which is deciding on a boycott is certainly running many risks, but there is also new space being opened for domestic stabilization, for calm sizing up of the situation, for patient and steady planning of a new beginning, devoid of squabbling over one mandate more or less. Unfortunately, I do not believe that the opposition will be able to muster enough power to seriously rethink Kosovo and to change the domesticized view that it is "a skeleton in a closet" — a space that is never to be entered, that is never to be cleaned or aired.

That remains a hereditary defect which from the very beginning jeopardizes every attempt at a decent organization of the country. I am not claiming that I know how it can be easily solved, but I see that the citizens of Serbia are hostages of the dangerous conditions in Kosovo, with which every aggression and lawless act can be justified. In the same way they were hostage to the war in Bosnia, while a new episode is menacing with the conflict in Montenegro.

For the elections boycott to be fully implemented and for the demand for full democratic changes to be convincingly set forth, space must be cleared, and every excuse and avoidance of the subject must be banished. If Kosovo continues to be too big a bite to chew, than at least the problem of Republika Srpska and Montenegro should be resolved. Since Biljana Plavsic somehow came upon the idea of getting rid of Milosevic’s protection, and the idea of Bosnian Serbs looking out for their own survival in conditions in which they find themselves largely thanks to him, her political current would have to be supported by everyone in Serbia who does not wish to live in poverty and chaos, as it seems Milosevic has more important business across the River Drina.

In the same way, Montenegro also cannot be allowed to become a campaign theme in Serbia, and it is evident that efforts are made in that direction with candidate Lilic’s trip of support for Bulatovic’s Kolasin Congress. That means that SPS is once again getting ready to rescue Yugoslavia, while Seselj will continue to utter threats and make incidents, and Lilic will continue to calm him. I do not know how Draskovic will fit into this well synchronized charade, but I can see that some of Milosevic’s staunchest opponents have negative comments about Milo Djukanovic. They speak of smuggling and criminal activities, forgetting that it was in Belgrade that the Chief of Police was gunned down and not in Podgorica, and that Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan was an MP in the Serbian Parliament, and not in the one in Podgorica.

However, the whole bounding of Montenegro boils down to the fact that Seselj was extradited from there, that JUL was stumped there, and that with Bulatovic, Milosevic’s last confidantes will disappear. The destruction of SR Yugoslavia consists in that, and those that can not imagine another foundation of our state from that of Milosevic, Seselj and Mira Markovic, should quickly go to Kolashin to save the day. It is there now that that homeland and that Serbian-Montenegrin brotherhood is being rescued. May the gusles carry to the end of time the heroic song of the eagle eyed Zoran Lilic, and the mighty