A beating from both ends

From the first day of the red-black coalition and the creation of their government of National Unity, a part of the local public continuously repeated the thesis that a cabinet put together five minutes before it was officially announced can’t last long.  From the beginning the other part of the public used a different kind of logic, stating that any judgment concerning the longevity of a government thrown together five minutes before its ministers took the oath is  rather unreliable.

It seems that in recent days those who predict the quick fall of the red-black coalition and point to a lot of evidence concerning the certain end to the love of the Radicals and the Left, who according to some rumors “governed badly,” are incomparably louder.  They usually cite the fact that Seselj and the Radicals are against Holbrooke’s mission in Kosovo.  They didn’t appear at the reception Serbian President Milan Milutinovic organized to celebrate July 7, and Seselj didn’t appear in the coverage of some state media (especially Politika) when he was recently on a two day visit to Kosovo.

At the same time a story surfaced that Vuk Draskovic was invited to the Beli Dvor.  Allegedly, his status as a stable, reserve player was reaffirmed to him. Seselj is supposedly angry at Milosevic because of Holbrooke, while Milosevic is angry at Seselj for meddling in these matters.  Hence he decided to call Vuk and to announce to him a “soft government” that would accept foreign observers and Holbrooke.  According to the same story, Vuk mentioned his conditions, then cautiously muted himself because the Socialists had deceived him once before. They are also saying that after granting the Albanians autonomy, elections would have to follow quickly.

Be that as it may, Seselj (this time as an active participant, not a sympathizer) put together the first 100 days of the National Unity government.  Amidst frequent newspaper reports that there won’t be another 100 days, he guested on BK Television’s Gravitacija and denied that there were any kind of problems with the Left in the Serbian government. He stated that their relations have neither cooled down, nor heated up and that in the government they discuss things quite easily.  “Before all else, this government was formed to defend Kosovo and Metohija.  Among us there are definite ideological differences, but we are in full agreement concerning Kosovo,” stated Seselj on Gravitacija.  The vice-president of Marijanovic’s government was rather certain that Milosevic can’t sign anything with the international community that the Radicals couldn’t accept.  It looks as though that confidence comes from Seselj’s conviction that no kind of quick agreement concerning Kosovo is possible (Milosevic wouldn’t be able to sign anything so quickly).  As long as that doesn’t happen, the Radicals and the Left in the Serbian government are in complete agreement that Kosovo must remain a part of Serbia, that Serbia won’t bend under pressure, and that not one foreign soldier dare come onto our territory.

Vreme’s sources from SPS otherwise confirm that Seselj in quite correct when he states that in the government’s first 100 days of work there was neither an exaggerated cooling off, nor a warming up of relations between the coalition partners. “Mainly, we are where we were--in a coalition that is costing us a great deal, but that we can’t do without.  That Seselj doesn’t like Holbrooke doesn’t have to be such a big problem. Sometimes it’s about a clear division of work: one blows, the other cools off, but even the international community can see that everything doesn’t go smoothly here, that there are different opinions about Kosovo,” says Vreme’s  source from SPS who doesn’t at all doubt that Marijanovic’s government will continue a lot longer that the first 100 days.

Aside from attitudes about Holbrooke’s involvement in Kosovo, there is a certain difference of opinion in the red-black coalition regarding the involvement of our delegation in some intentional gatherings. The Radicals feel that one shouldn’t “lower oneself” by participating in conferences that Ljubisa Ristic (JUL) and Milan Bozic (SPS) usually travel to, and which usually end with some new declaration or resolution concluding that SRJ is still quite far from returning to international organizations.  To make matters worse, Ristic and Bozic simply loiter in the halls and offices of different European institutes and organizations most often without the right to get in a word at gatherings like the recent Parliamentary meeting of OSCE in Copenhagen.

Those are the disagreements that are until now publicly mentioned by the Radical side. However, there remain many that, according to the writing of some supposedly well informed newspapers, all the more threaten the red-black coalition and the existence of the government.  According to these assertions, the Left less and less succeeds in bearing the voracity of the Radicals, who in the government, “behave arrogantly” and daily broaden the list of their demands. At first they asked that every Socialist minister receive a Radical aid (and reverse). Afterwards, they asked for places in administrative committees of pubic companies (that job still isn’t completed);  then, allegedly 30 appointments for their activist; then the right to bring into the ministry their own “Radical secretaries” who with no work watch with the “Left  secretaries”.  All that, according to the “thrifty claims” of the Socialists and JULies, results in at least double the spending of this government in comparison to the recent Marijanovic cabinet in which there were no Radicals.

That’s a lot to swallow and for now it’s keeping the Radicals quiet. Although the position of information minister belongs to them, their visibility on state television screens and coverage in the newspapers under the Left’s control hasn’t increased substantially in comparison to the period when they were sympathizers to the regime. The Radicals also aren’t completely satisfied with relations and the honoring of mutual agreements with coalition partners in the Serbian government. In their own time they accepted that the law concerning the university be forced onto the May session of the Parliament per Socialist demands before the law concerning information for which Minister Aleksandar Vucic is responsible. The agreement about information isn’t honored because the Serbian Parliament probably won’t meet until the second half of September. It looks as though the coalition partners have rather different attitudes about the approach to the law concerning property transformation.  The first clash occurred around the change of ownership of Dalje, a firm privatized according to the standards of the SPS government (Milan Beko), but challenged according to the criteria of the Radical-Socialist government (Radical Minister Luka Mitrovic).

Although in the first movement it looked as though the list  the reds and the blacks momentarily swallowed is rather long, the prognosis that they will quickly get tired of each other doesn’t come across as too credible right now. Previously, one could speak about the changes and reconstruction of the government on the federal level which were announced by different sides and with different ambitions. Seselj and Milosevic will hang onto each other as long as the complete perforation of the Kosovo boil doesn’t get too close. The shooting down of their current coalition becomes realistic the moment when the Socialists might consent to some kind of agreement concerning Kosovo under international pressure and in such a manner cross the threshold of Radical tolerance.  On the eve of some Kosovoian Dayton, when concessions follow that clash with the logic of radical nationalism, the coalition partners will then move in their own direction and resurrect all old (and add new) accusations on each other’s account. The Left will state that Seselj served them as a stepping stone to a Kosovian Dayton, while the Radicals will state that they no longer desired to witness traitorous politics of their former coalition partners.  From all that can be learned up to now about the government’s work and negotiations concerning the solution to the Kosovo problem, one will have to wait.
The story about the looming collapse of the coalition doesn’t fit too well with  the thesis stated earlier that Seselj not only entered the government in order to better master and overcome technological power, but also to collect evidence against the Socialists and “criminals.” Even as a student the leader of the Radicals demonstrated an ability to learn as a go getter (thoroughly and quickly), but his three month stay in the government is , nevertheless, too short a period of time for someone who until now mainly dabbled in government on the level of kiosks. Seselj and his people lack experience in carrying out administrative tasks and still more time to master the job as is required. When one looks at the government from the inside, everything somehow looks differently, especially one’s own statement’s of character, “If the Radicals soon come to power, the Socialists will get at least 2,000 years forced labor. The time has come to unmask the head Mafiosi in Serbia. His name is Slobodan Milosevic,” (Vojislav Seselj 1993).
According to the opinions of some analysts, the fall of the red-black coalition would in this moment come to soon in regard to the fact that Milosevic needs Seselj in the government for at least half a year in order to compromise him enough to break the myth of Seselj as member of the opposition. Also, the story about Milosevic ordering Vuk to enter a “soft government” in place of Seselj comes off as rather illogical. If Vuk rejects this eventual offer, new elections would have to follow in the Fall.  This would please the Radicals even more.  JUL has already demonstrated many times that it doesn’t have the extraordinary electoral power (researchers put it between 7 and 15 percent) and that it can’t be much help when it is the important task of maintaining power. At the same time, with the escalation of the Kosovo crisis, the Radicals become all the more dominating and prepared for the eventuality of new elections. Sociologist Dr. Vladimir Goati, who recently noticed that the Radicals have an interest in entering new elections because according to all judgments they are the strongest political force in Serbia, shares this opinion. New elections, even under irregular conditions, would give the advantage to the Radicals, stated Dr. Goati. He also mentioned the fact that in their coalition with the Radicals, the Socialists have always paid with the loss of their supporters. “Those are simply two sides that have almost an identical, fluctuating electoral body. There is one rule that up till now hasn’t been broken: whenever the relations between SPS and SRS are good, the Radicals will when election time comes around,” said Dr. Goati.

Many party leaders have come out  these days concerning the longevity of this coalition. New Democracy leader Dusan Mihajlovic, who a few months ago was close to the government and know how things function from the inside, predicted in one news interview that a long-lasting situation of total chaos can be expected if the situation turns for the worse and the regime experiences greater pressure and attempts to take in its hands all levers of social life. Mihajlovic also warns that Seselj has definitely finished with his one time role of clown, and even that of scarecrow. “He is no longer a club in the hands of the government. He has become the government and personally holds the stick of government in his hands,” said the leader of New Democracy.

In all the actual predictions concerning the longevity of the Radical-Left coalition, what would stand in all these discussions and prediction from the start is not mentioned hardly anywhere. Hardly anyone who has commented on this theme has tied the longevity of the government with its ability to solve the problems of society. It seems as though that ability is something that no one generally understands and in no way ties it to Marijanovic’s cabinet. In the world, governments fall and survive depending on  how people live. Here, everything is measured by different standards, so it turns out that it is more important who will deceive who first in the government than how much the government has cheated all of us. Or as neuro-psychologist Jovan Maric noted, “not once government can be as sadistic as Serbs can be masochistic.”