Golden Lever's of Power

Toward the end of 1997, elections were held several times in Serbia.  Even though the elections for the president of Serbia attracted greater public attention, the elections for the members of the Parliament of Serbia actually had more profound systemic significance.  The parliamentary elections in September gained this importance by virtue of the fact that their result marked the beginning of the second phase of Milosevic's power in Serbia.  The first phase began with the first parliamentary elections in 1990, and lasted until the December elections in 1993.  The transitional period lasted from March of 1994, when a coalition government was formed by the Socialists and the New Democrats, with the second phase finally beginning with the coalition government formed by the Left Coalition and Seselj's Radicals, in March of 1998.

The following difference can be observed between these two phases.  During the first phase, Milosevic had absolute and direct power over all structures of authority in the state.  During this phase, his absolute authority was the result of his direct control over its structures.  The Parliament, the Government, big enterprises and public institutions, the mint, television and the biggest news agencies in the state, community government - were all institutions under Milosevic's direct control.  All top positions in these institutions were held by members of the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia, which was directly controlled by Milosevic.  By controlling the party, he controlled the levers of power in Serbia, and enjoyed absolute rule.

However, by forming the coalition government with the Radicals, the structure of Milosevic's authority has changed: it is still absolute, but it is no longer direct.  This means that Milosevic does not exercise his power any longer by controlling his party, but by forming agreements with political actors over whom he has no direct control.  The first such agreement, as we already mentioned, occurred in the transitional phase when the socialists continued to rule Serbia in coalition with the New Democrats, from February of 1994, to March of 1998.

Such agreements continued.  The first one that followed was the agreement with Draskovic and the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) over control of Belgrade, and then the elections came, forcing Milosevic to forge an agreement with Seselj.  After Milo Djukanovic's victory in November of 1997 and the ensuing win in May of 1998 by the Coalition "For a Better Life" in Montenegro, Milosevic will once again have to enter into some type of agreement with Montenegrins in which he will not be able to count on their blind loyalty, the way he could with Momir Bulatovic.  Finally, what inevitably awaits Milosevic is an agreement with Albanians on the constitutional status of Kosovo and on the human rights of Albanians who live there.  All this indicates that the scope of Milosevic's direct power in Serbia has been considerably reduced by comparison with the 1990-1993 phase of his rule.

However, the fact that Milosevic's direct control has been reduced does not necessarily mean that the extent of his power has also been lessened.  On the contrary, it is still absolute, the way it was in the first phase.  All agreements Milosevic forged in the past, and which he plans to forge in the near future, preclude negotiations with political actors who do not require fundamental restructuring of Milosevic's authority.  Under fundamental restructuring we include loss of control over financial, economic and powerful media institutions in Serbia, and not the loss of a given number of seats in parliament.

The reasons why no one yet required of Milosevic to fundamentally restructure his authority can be reduced to tactical concerns.  For instance, Seseljs' tactics consist of waiting for the right moment for standing up to Milosevic and attempting to depose him.  The basic means for this is by causing a government crisis, after which a parliamentary crisis would logically follow, and the calling of a new elections in which Seselj will wait for voters to punish Milosevic for, let's say, "selling out" Kosovo.  As we can see, Seselj sacrificed the possibility of reducing Milosevic's power, for the possibility of causing a crisis and deposing Milosevic.

While it was in a coalition with the Socialists, New Democracy had different reasons for similar behavior.  This tiny party was aware of the fact that it could only enter the government as part of a greater coalition.  That is why they accepted to ask of the Socialists only as much as they needed for surviving on the political scene and for being able to enter the next elections alone.

Thus, the New Democrats subjugated the interest of strengthening their party to the possibility of strengthening Milosevic's party and causing democratic changes in Serbia.  By "play-acting" the opposition, Draskovic is being governed by similar logic.  Besides that, he also had one more task which he took up since the time of the breakup of the Coalition Zajedno: destroying Djindjic.  These are all reasons which forced Draskovic to go along with Milosevic throughout 1998, without trying to thwart him more seriously.  Finally, once an agreement is formed with the Albanians, that agreement most likely will not effect the key levers of Milosevic's authority in Serbia, because Albanians are not interested in the change of the balance of power in Serbia, but only in Kosovo. The other reason which permits Milosevic to keep absolute power, even though he does not have direct control over it, is the current political discourse in Serbia.  The question of Kosovo has such a powerful influence on uniting the key political actors in Serbia, that it is simply preventing them from standing up to Milosevic with more fundamental demands.  That is why Milosevic does not have any difficulties in dictating the conditions for agreements, because he is still the one who is controlling the political discourse.

The problem of the political discourse occupies a central place in Milosevic's second phase of power.  It was also important in the first phase, but in a different way, because at that time he controlled power directly. Now, power is being held through the question of Kosovo, and not directly. In one ideal sense, Milosevic would prefer that the question of Kosovo never be solved.  The moment the question of Kosovo is closed, Milosevic will be faced with enormous problems, because he will realize that in the absence of political discourse, absolute power can only be maintained through direct control.  But, as we already explained, he can no longer rely on direct control because the party which he himself controls, no longer occupies all structures of authority.

Since September 1997, Milosevic and the Left Coalition have been up to their necks in various kinds of agreements and "deals".  The number of such agreements will only rise.  All this, thanks to the fact that the Left Coalition is no longer able to win an absolute majority in parliament.  In order to be able to answer the question that results from the fact that in the second phase of Milosevic's power his authority continues to be absolute, despite not being direct, it is sufficient to observe what will happen in the next elections on the level of the republics in which the Left Coalition will not be able to win an absolute majority.  At that time, Milosevic will be able to forge agreements only with those political actors who will require of him some measure of sharing power.

The fact that, despite a lost absolute majority in parliament, Milosevic still continues to rule, indicates that his government is familiar with techniques of ruling without any such majority.  In this text we outlined precisely what sort of techniques are at issue.  But regardless of how efficient those techniques might be, they are short-lived.  If Milosevic does not come up with new techniques, after the closing of the question of Kosovo, he will no longer know how to keep all those political agreements, without allowing them to fundamentally effect his absolute power.  This will herald in the third phase of his rule - the one in which his power will no longer be either absolute, or direct.  This will be the first condition for the beginnings of democracy in Serbia