Promises Without Charge

Back in '94, Milan Bozic was already giving interviews in his not too large apartment, smoking the domestic "Clasic Light". In only four years his life had changed so much that he speaks with jouranlists in the enormous cabinet of the Vice-President of the Assembly of Belgrade, smoking "Davidoff Lights", and answering accasionally to the hiss of one of his two cellular phones. He is the leading political commentator of the Serbian Renewal Movement, member of the Presidency of that party and at the same time a man who enjoys the greatest confidence with the conjugal couple Draskovic, MP in federal parliament as well as the parliament of the republic, and at the same time he still manages to hold his position at the Mathematics Faculty. Along with all that, he is considered a personal friend of the conjugal couple Milosevic-Markovic, and a man who dances to the same tune as Mirko Marjanovic. We spoke with the all present Bozic at the very time that Vuk Draskovic was consulting Milan Milutinovic regarding memberships in the new parliament of the republic, while on Bozic's territory, the City Transportation Company strike, largest to date, was in full swing.

VREME: In your address to citizens on the occasion of the Serbian New Year, you said that you are expecting significant improvements in the quality of life of Belgrade residents. With what measures does city government hope to achieve this?

Milan Bozic: This year Belgrade received an enormous increase in its so-called financial maneuverability. Initial projections were for a budget of one billion and seven hundred million dinars, while only a billion and six hundred million were actually received. This time there is a possibility of having a two billion, seven hundred million dinar budget. Belgrade's participation in the total sales tax figure had been increased, and an additional three percent tax had been added. Belgrade's budget will increase by 80 percent in comparison to last year's, while the average increase on the level of the republic is around twenty to thirty percent. But one must be careful, because all budgets fall apart with inflation.

What are the intended expenditures for the funds gathered from the three percent tax?

What is important - and we will not back down on this point, which is our conception when defending the budget, and if it falls apart because of the absence of a stable majority in the Municipal Assembly, than that's an entirely different matter - is that the sallery of municipal services does not go up, but that only the quality of the service they provide improves, which means: acquisition of new buses, trolley buses, this is critical and top priority because for three years we did not purchase a single one, the completion of the train exchange - it is hight time for that eyesore to be removed from out there, for after all that will be Belgrade's future. The ring around River Sava will one day be the most expensive and most luxurious part of Belgrade. And of course, there are improvements in the streets, and the waterworks.

When will the Municipal Assembly session be continued?

I haven't a clue. I will have consultations with the Heads of MP's groups. I have no inclination for calling it together if only one or two groups show up. I will only call a consultation when at least three of the four MP's groups decide to attend.

Radoje Prica, Head of the Democrat's MP group stated that a request by 40 MP's was submitted as far back as December 25.

Until it is certain that at least 56 will show up, there is no reason for calling a session.

But aren't you obliged according to house rules to call a session at the request of a third of the MP's?

To call it, and have someone not showing up? It's out of the question.

Aren't you bound by house rules?

To call a session yes, but not to continue a discontinued session...

Your yourself said that there is no stable parliamentary majority.

There isn't, there isn't. What we have to see is whether there will be any changes by spring.

But if a stable parliamentary majority will be formed, will it be between SPO and the Democrats?

I think that we can strike a deal with the Democrats. Their main hurdle is their leader and the boycott policy. They desire that authority. They like it, no one likes to leave a head committee, position as director. I have a strong impression that they would like that, except that they ought to be adequately offered an honourable way back in.

Was it not clear last fall that with the replacing of Zoran Djindjic the coalition was disintegrating?

Of course it was clear; that was political revenge, plain and simple. Let's understand each other: he became mayor in order to support Vuk Draskovic's nomination for President of Serbia. An agreement was signed: you become mayor in return for that support. The moment you started to dream, Havel, the coalition broke apart. Normal political punishment followed. We would all be masochists had we not replaced him. There's no mercy there, that's politics.

In several interviews last summer you dealt with the reasons for Djindjic's refusing to offer his support for Vuk Draskovic's nomination. You wagered that he wishes for a coalition with the Socialists in the Assembly of Serbia, but that for that coalition he cannot be too big because the Socialists will not accept an equal partner...

Yes, he cannot go into that with a big crowd. Were he to remain in coalition with us, then Zajedno would have around 60-80 MP's, and the Socialists around a 100 to 110. Then the demands which the Coalition would table in front of him would be weighty both on a political and a personnel level. In such a position, every thinking politician would conclude that it's better to have a majority which is closer to 126 MP's, with a few more to spare.

Didn't SPO find itself precisely in that position when you were wagering at the time that Djindjic was wishing, and is it possible that you are thinking in the way that you ascribed to Djindjic at the time?

Probably. SPO has an agenda since '94, we keep repeating this... We want to negotiate, but the point is that something should be done regarding political platforms, and not who will be what. Now our position is even stronger. Milosevic is weaker than he used to be. He is not as influential in Republika Srpska, in Montenegro he is gone, while we are better off than we used to be. We have local governments in many places, which we earlier didn't have. Thus, we are only biding our time.

But local authority in Belgrade depends on the Socialists...

But we are at least participating in that authority, and we are in power in many other places. We are stronger than in '94, and Milosevic is weaker.

But he is still much stronger than SPO. He has the truncheon and the piggy bank, and many more MP's. Why would he accept SPO's agenda?

He doesn't have to, but now I can wait. My worries for the fate of my party are smaller now than then. Now we are at least participating in government in 40-50 municipalities throughout Serbia, and at the sametime, as we Serbians keep forgetting, he has significantly weakened in other Serb countries.

You mentioned the ever growing willingness of the Socialists to hand over power, if only they were allowed to keep what they stole.

Every country in transition is faced with the identical problem: What to do with personnel which in the meantime became the establishement? Every mafia would like to be legalized. This mechanism operated in every country in transition...

We agree with some kind of historical compromise. We call it national peace, and the Socialists, shyly call it the government of national unity. The basic question is, can a consensus be reached on political forces for the coutry to change into what it must change into, into a model of a western capitalist democracy.

But the present thieves would get some kind of immunity?

I think you hit the nail on the head, and that is the sense of justice. But that is only significant for the present generation. For the next one it will be irrelevant how capitalists came by their money.

But in this case they will get real political power along with their money.

A real danger is that at the moment when they have to hand over power, they will make that power so insignificant that there will be nothing to hand over. That is the key to historical compromise. An agreement must exist for power not to disintegrate and, to not use that pathetic word - democracy, for pro-western parties to share that political power with them. Otherwise, if you always wait for a revolutionary scenario, you will never get anything, because they will ruin everything spontaneously.

Which one among them is willing to compromise?

There are those who have predispositions toward compromise, and those are the ones who got rich. They have sociological reasons for doing this, and when and if they will do this, I do not know. They must establish a system in which they freely enjoy their wealth, if they do not intend for everyone to leave the coutry.

How can anyone who publically fights against thieves be friends with them?

The question is whether the person who is friends with them perceives them as thieves.

Do you have such a perception of Mirko Marjanovic, when you sing with him?

First of all, I never sang with him because he sings beautifully, and I can only listen to him with admiration. And I do not have a perception that he is a thief. I do not have that hysterical passion of Stojan Cerovic.

And how would you call the phenomenon of someone using their political position for bringing a company, on whose board of directors they sit, into a more favorable position?

That is not correct and I'm politically against that, but at the moment there are formal-legal hurdles against one and the same individual holding down both such positions. That depends on prevailing moral principles. Here the fact that a director of a company is at once a minister, is part of our folk culture.

You also spoke about this government as criminal?

Of course, that is our standard political rhetoric. We learned to talk that way. Would anyone listen to us if we did not talk that way?

Do you really think that?

But what does it mean if I think that something is morally incorrect, if it is widespread? It is unthinkable that any one individual sets moral standards, I merely observe them.

Once you said that bringing a troup of cousins along to political positions is a positive thing.

No; rather, reacting to one of the excited outbursts of the Democrats, I said that they must distinguish between single-party and multi-party systems. In the latter, it is most logical that he who wins the elections brings with him those who will help him win the next election. Kennedy appointed his own brother as Justice Minister. In the next election, this policy will be tested. Protection against nepotism only makes sense there where there is no competition.