The Titanic

The new Serbian government was named on Tuesday, March 24th in a quite depressing atmosphere. Pretending they knew exactly what they were doing, the deputies of the left-wing coalition walked out of the Assembly hall and let their faces tell the story. "Have you got a government?"... "You do?"... With who?".... "The radicals?"..."But of course!"....

The radicals, on the other hand, knew bits and pieces of the deal their leader, Vojislav Seselj, had made with Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic the day before. They uttered a word or two before the session began, while the socialists, according to SPS sources themselves, had a stormy night before judgment day.  The session of the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia went on until three o' clock in the morning, as the warring SPS deputies couldn't agree whether they should form a coalition with Seselj's radicals rather than Vuk Draskovic's Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO). The other and perhaps the more important issue on the agenda was who should be trusted with the mandates. Seselj sent Dragan Todorovic and Stevo Dragisic to negotiate with Serbian president Milan Milutinovic, his deputy Toma Nikolic represented the radicals in talks with Mirko Marjanovic, and then the "Duke" turned up to collect the award himself. Seselj says that his negotiations with the socialists were based on pure mathematics. The outcome of the session indicates that they went pretty smoothly, and that Seselj is telling the truth this time.

The SPO deputies were pretty anxious on Tuesday, although they probably expected the socialists to turn down an open coalition with the radicals. They looked like a group of gamblers waiting for the outcome of a roulette game. Other politicians, in and out of the parliament (politics is business too), kept waking up reporters in the middle of the night to find out if there was any news.

The final stage of the talks on how many ministerial posts each side would get, or the balance of power if you like, coincided with the deadline for the Kosovo ultimatum made to Slobodan Milosevic by the international community.

THE DECLARATION: The talks on the composition of the new government were preceded by a platform presented by Serbian president Milan Milutinovic and a draft declaration on national reconciliation, later to be renamed national unity. It appears certain that the declaration was made by Vuk Draskovic and slightly amended by the socialists when they turned to Seselj. According to Draskovic, the re-furnished declaration is a forged copy of the document he wrote on March 13th and concerted with Milutinovic somewhat later. The SPS general secretary, Gorica Gajevic, said during the Assembly session that Vuk Draskovic signed the declaration personally, while Ivan Kovacevic specified that the bit saying "thanks and glory to all those who fought foreign occupants, may we never again be enemies to ourselves" was left out. Kovacevic went on to say that there was also a bit left out where the Serbian Assembly vows to pass laws on national symbols and holidays two months after the declaration is adopted at the latest.

So, how come that's the biggest problem in a country going through another tough crisis? Bearing in mind tolerance for the ideological ambitions of Mirjana Markovic, Slobodan Milosevic's wife, there could actually be a bigger problem. Aleksandar Tijanic, the former Serbian Information Minister and an eminent political commentator, was right in believing that the SPO's negotiations with the SPS would fail once the dead royalists (chetniks) and the dead partizans are mentioned. A reliable SPS official told VREME that the decision to form a coalition with Seselj shocked the socialist deputies. He went on to say that the stumbling block in the talks with Draskovic was neither the number nor the quality of ministerial posts, but the demand to rehabilitate the chetniks. According to the official, the demand was unacceptable because the left wing still relies very much on the 400,000 votes it gets from World War II veterans and their families. The socialists say Vuk's wife, Danica Draskovic, are to blame for his refusal to back down on this particular matter. Once again, the SPO insisted on a declaration and some symbolic acts regarding a communist abdication in order to justify its unprincipled coalition with the socialists and to silence its recent partners from the opposition. It often happens in politics that disputes are settled when things that have little or nothing to do with the essential problem are brought up. The final showdown before Slobodan Milosevic's rise to power began in the spring of 1987 with a discussion on an irrelevant newspaper cartoon of something. So what is the real issue here?

While it was still uncertain whether the SPO deputies would vote for their own declaration, and they didn't, the phrase "your idea, our gasoline" had a new ironic meaning. What counts is the fact that the privatization process, imminent as it is, will be controlled by the radicals and the leftists, and the probability that their coalition will last for a very long time.

THE BILL: It appears someone is very keen to go through with privatization in an isolated country where human lives, labor and industrial plants are becoming worthless. It also seems that some powerful lobbies find a right-wing coalition more suitable to do the job than a centrist one. Milan Beko, the outgoing privatization minister, said the property transformation process would go on in spite of credible threats that it won't get foreign support. Beko said with bitter disappointment, understandable for a lone reformist in power, that there never has been any foreign support. The radicals and Milan Beko, who will remain in the government, will formally control the transformation.
Beko will probably be given special powers, for it's hard to believe that his team of experts will want to cooperate with the radicals. Some of them said they would take back their privatization draft projects immediately.

The socialists and the radicals took 15 ministries each, five went to the Yugoslav Left Wing Alliance (JUL) and Milan Beko is the one non-party minister. Seselj was quite happy to leave the interior ministry to the socialists, knowing that it operates on a double-key basis and that the Serbian president is in charge of dishing ranks to the police. He did, however, take a few ministries potentially powerful enough to run some influential sectors such as privatization, transport and communications. The people he appointed to represent the Radical Party in the government don't look too competent, while his information minister leaves the impression of a quite uneducated person. In his previous mandate, Mirko Marjanovic gave the government's innermost and outer leaderships various and diverse powers depending on the situation. The new government is probably the most incompetent in the last ten years or so, but the most important thing about it is that Seselj, also known as the "Red Duke", has become the vice-premier.
Seselj will most definitely become very influential and grow stronger at the expense of the socialists, but he will also continue to destroy the democratic center along with the socialists and obstruct its consolidation. One must not forget that SRS supporters are extreme patriots, xenophobic and very radical, and therefore much closer to the socialists than the opposition parties.

Seselj has already indicated that he will to some extent support Milosevic's concessions to Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, as well as distance himself from the Pristina University dean, Mr. Papovic, who refuses to accept the treaty enabling Albanian children to go back to school.  In case Milosevic opts to give the ethnic Albanians autonomy one piece at a time, there is no telling how long Seselj could be in the government. He could even grab a considerable portion of the electorate from the socialists at the next elections if he stays that long.

Thus the rise of the radicals continues. They won more portfolios than "The Titanic" did Oscar awards. It only appears that Serbia and The Titanic have nothing in common for they are actually becoming perfect synonyms. Seselj's rise to power was helped last year by many people who wanted to help him and just as many who probably never intended to. Some observers feel that his coexistence with socialists will once again be short-lived, and that they might look for a new partner in the near future. In that case, the SPO would once again be in a position to negotiate, and it would even be in a position to demand more from the socialists.

A government made of socialists and radicals will surely aggravate Serbia's international position, although initial reactions do not show this clearly. An unnamed representative of the British Foreign Office told the Beta news agency that the British government was interested in the Serbian government's actions rather than its composition, meaning that Great Britain couldn't care less about Milosevic's bluff with the new government. Another conclusion has already been made by the Americans - if Milosevic had any intention of cooperating with anyone, he wouldn't have picked Seselj for a partner.

BARGAINING: Last August, Vuk Draskovic focused his political language against the radicals and his tactics against the Democratic Party led by Zoran Djindjic, who has met a number of ranking state officials and foreign diplomats in the past few months. He thought Milosevic couldn't take the chance of embracing Seselj and refused to give in during negotiations, but tried to bargain his way to real power. However, the ruling oligarchy never had any intention of letting him in.

"Having said that their platform was the most important issue, the SPO claimed that the number of ministerial posts they would get and the personal composition of the government wasn't a crucial matter for them. As the Prime Minister designate, I offered them nine of the 23 ministerial sectors, including several key ones, two of the seven ministries without portfolio and two of the five vice-premier posts, although the SPO only has 18 percent of all the deputies in the Serbian parliament", Mirko Marjanovic said. He went on to say that the SPO subsequently demanded privileges such as more ministerial posts than the SPS, conditioning the coalition on their granting. Marjanovic said he was surprised by such action at a time when Serbia faces "internal and foreign pressure" and "dialogue with the ethnic Albanians and other minorities in Kosovo".

Several ranking SPO officials commented on the outcome. They said that Serbian president Milan Milutinovic's platform on lifting the outer wall of sanctions, effective democratic reforms and reintegration with the world would collapse in the hands of Mirko Marjanovic and his two deputies, Vojislav Seselj and Toma Nikolic. They added that their efforts would be  as successful as an attempt to put out a fire with a gallon of fuel. They went on to say that most SPS deputies opposed the coalition with the radicals, because they are aware that it will shut all the remaining windows to the world rather than open new ones.

RETRIBUTION: Since the SPO refused to vote for the reconciliatory declaration and failed to become part of the new government, the socialists and the radicals will accuse them of opposing national unity. The SPO can expect an all-out attack, the ferocity of which was indicated by an anonymous source saying "Vuk Draskovic's merchants" would be arrested unless he entered the government.

Mirko Marjanovic announced amendments to the law on local administration, making it pretty clear what he actually meant. The radicals control only the Zemun municipality, while the socialists never got over the painful defeat of losing 15 major cities in the local elections last winter.  It now seems that the socialists wanted a coalition with Draskovic only to help the warring opposition parties controlling some of Serbia largest cities destroy each other completely, in order to squeeze out the democrats and recapture the local authority they lost.

The game is now off, because Seselj will surely ask for his cut. The socialists and the radicals may be in a position to do what they will with the Zajedno coalition, for its warring factions are interested only in destroying each other completely. On the other hand, Draskovic is still unpopular with those who boycotted last year's elections. In an effort to establish his leadership of the opposition and win the presidential elections, Draskovic went to war with his former partners. On Monday they called him a regime servant, on Tuesday they told him he was a fake and a sold out politician who would never be allowed to return to the opposition. The latter part of the statement may be an indication that there will be no elections in the near future and that the balance of power in Serbia will remain as it is for a very long time to come.

Busy with their petty little party wars, the leaders of last winter's protest proved incapable of capitalizing on its success or preventing the all-round national misery that followed. They ignored warnings that the radicals were coming and had no idea how to refute the radicals when they came. After spending a year helping Seselj rise to power, each and every one of them is still as blind and self-indulgent as they were, even at this critical moment for democracy in Serbia and the Serbian nation in general. They are all criticizing and revolted with what they call Seselj's government, but that's about all they have in common.

"Today, Serbia got the most backward government in Europe and probably the most backward government in its history" (the Democratic Party).
"The Socialists needed this coalition as an alibi to keep ignoring national interests" (the Democratic Party of Serbia).
"This government will lead Serbia into total collapse" (Dragan Veselinov).
"This government guarantees more misery, poverty and isolation" (Vesna Pesic). That's all for now.

The very composition of the government indicates that its basic goal is to keep humiliating the remnants of the Zajedno coalition and nullifying the results of the popular protest that rocked Serbia last winter.

There is no need to point out the difference between the composition of the government and Mirko Marjanovic's inaugurating statement that its basic goal is the normalization of relations between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the European Union. His deputy, Vojislav Seselj, should best keep to himself what he thinks about the normalization, bearing in mind what he said about it in the past. The new government was formed the day before the Contact Group meeting in Bonn. Its composition reveals the regime's frightening determination to keep defying the international community, to keep confronting itself with the world and ultimately to make concessions when it is forced to, ignoring the fact that the price of its senseless policy keeps rising.

Judging by reactions in the Serbian Assembly, its reign will be marked by a deep crisis, national distrust, international isolation, chaos and economic collapse. The Serbian television's live coverage of the fateful Assembly session was quite ironically followed by a story on Giuseppe Verdi's "Requiem". In 1881, Verdi said he had written so many Requiems that he shouldn't add another one to them. He did, however, change his mind.