Round Table of the Government and Opposition

After an eloquent silence, Dobrica Cosic (a Serbian writer, considered by many as the "father of the nation") last week proposed the urgent organization of a political council made up of representatives of all the parties in Serbia and Montenegro. "For God's sake, let them once and for all negotiate," he lamented, requesting the governing party to put aside its policy of dictation and fait accompli and for the opposition to put an end to its destruction and obstruction. Vuk Draskovic most eloquently answered Cosic by accusing him of not seeing that the role of the opposition is to oppose the policy of fait accompli.

Draskovic announced the collision of despotism and democracy in Serbia, mass demonstrations by the end of May and the creation of an opposition coalition "soon"; he then went to Ravna Gora where, before thirty thousand or so people, he uncovered the monument to General Draza Mihajlovic and declared "a program of three aims": "To topple communism. To topple communism. To topple communism."

The Central Committee of the Serbian Socialist Party has given its leaders the task of negotiating with the opposition conditions for participation in the elections. Zoran Lilic, the leader of the group of SPS (Socialist Party of Serbia) MPs, said that sooner or later the government and opposition will have to sit down and talk.

These talks began at the Sava Center on Thursday, May 14, sixteen days before the start of the elections, and the same day, the Serbian Parliament undertook urgent procedures on the passing of a law on the financing of political parties and of the election campaigns, a move which the opposition sought two years ago.

Two months ago the Parliament rejected the demand of the Democratic Party MPs for an investigation into the financing of political parties. All subsequent demands by the opposition that the ruling party hand over the property which according to them was illegally gained, have been rejected.

Belgrade sociologist, Vladimir Goati, notes that the new parties make up for their financial inferiority by the dedicated labor of a few hundred or thousand party activists from the party nuclei, who introduced the first formative phases, and who, according to Goati, are now "showing signs of exhaustion".

Unlike them, the Socialists have 750 professional party workers. A third of the district councils of the two biggest opposition parties have no premises, and half have no telephone.

Unlike the Socialist professional party nomenclature, the majority of leaders in the opposition parties were to begin with teaching staff at universities, where there have always been oases of resistance against the old regime (although there are a number of ex-communists in the party structure of the opposition), while the leadership of SPS is made up of professional politicians with many years of service.

According to Goati, the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO), in its diffuse structure, is reminiscent of a social movement: the official estimation of the number of members varies between 15,000 and 25,000, and the party is so structured that the difference between members, followers and sympathizers is lost. In any way, it is indisputable that financial and personal exhaustion has made it impossible to form a complete party structure inside any of the opposition parties.

Unlike them, there is still a very large bureaucracy of the ruling party which is slowly disintegrating. Goati shows that in 1989 and 1990 six hundred thousand members left the SPS, that in 1991 the official figure of 430,000 members included 275,000 new members, and that following the exit of this party from public sector companies, its members, used to frequent party meetings, protested that the leadership had "disbanded the party". Goati considers that the official data on membership of the SPS is unrealistic.

In this context the invitation of the Socialists to discuss "conditions", "fair play in the elections", "equal treatment in the media", "moving of the deadlines for announcing candidacy", etc., sounds cynical.

The opposition parties from the center call for the postponement of the elections and an assembly for the drawing up of the constitution. Milomir Babic, of the Farmers' Party, said on Thursday at the Sava Center, that elections on May 31 could not be taken into consideration, and that Serbia cannot be saved from its crisis in such a flippant manner.

The Secretary of the Democratic Party, Slobodan Gavrilovic, emphasizes that the Democratic Party was been calling for this type of dialogue for the last two years, but under the condition, and with the guarantee, that it is not merely a "consultation meeting", and that there can be no talk of elections on May 31. The Democratic Party delegation left the talks with the Socialists as soon as it became clear that Skundric (SPS Secretary-General) was trying to convince the others that, with minor concessions, the elections be held on the given date. The President of the Vojvodina Democratic Reformists, Dragoljub Petrovic, left the meeting at the same time as Gavrilovic. It was clear that the farce was over.

Nebojsa Popov, who attended the meeting in the name of the Republican Club (which calls for the postponement of the elections with the preparation of the opposition for the next elections), as a political sociologist, told the VREME reporter that it seemed to him that the ruination of the idea of a round table, which is in any case a very serious institution, will bring about the definite collapse of the present regime. "As a citizen," said Popov, "I would like the ruling party to secure for itself an honorable withdrawal from power". Elections organized in this way will not only make more difficult international recognition, but will introduce new tensions between the Yugoslav government and citizens, along with new conflicts.

The Socialists nonetheless did announce certain concessions. Mr. Markovic (an SPS official) said that the reasons for holding local elections on May 31 were not very strong or immovable, and even hypothetically mentioned June 28 as the date for the federal elections. Petar Skundric was lenient towards the demands of the opposition for a postponement of local elections. All the relevant opposition parties are for a boycott of the elections. Surprising was the decision of the Democratic Union of Hungarians from Vojvodina (DZVM) to run in the elections from the fear that the Socialist Party, with the help of extremist groups, will take over power in the Hungarian enclaves.

Why does Milosevic insist on speedy elections? Because his policy is not used to compromise, and maybe he really believes that he can con someone in the international community.

Milan Milosevic

 In the elections in December 1990, SPS won 45.8% of the votes, the Serbian Renewal Movement 15.7%, and the Democratic Party 7.4 %. The prognosis on the election results by the Institute of Social Sciences was only slightly out: in most cases it gave everyone a little less: the Socialists 5.8% less, SPO 1.7% and the Democrats 1.4% less.

A poll which was done by the Institute for Political Studies in Belgrade, showed last October, with the culmination of the war in Croatia, that the Socialist Party was still, by 30% of the votes, the strongest party; second in number was Seselj's Serbian Radical Party, which could then have won 15% of the votes; the third was the Democratic Party with 12%, and in fourth place was the Serbian Renewal Movement, with 7%. In February 1992, according to research by the Institute of Social Sciences, which guessed the outcome in December 1990, the popularity of the SPS has fallen to 26% of the potential voters, the Serbian Renewal Movement has 9%, the Democratic Party 7%, as in the first elections, and the Serbian Radical Party is no longer among the parties which could win 5% of the votes.