A Kingdom for a Horse

Milosevic gained nothing with the May 1992 elections. He is being accused of yet another swindle, and, in spite of the announced triumph, he didn't even gain enough votes to confirm the removal of the five-pointed star from the flag, freely displayed, starless, even before the plebiscite.

The 55.18% vote in no way corresponds to the announcement of triumph on the part of Slobodan Milosevic and his Prime Minister, Radovan Bozovic. Two years ago the Socialist Party gained 2,320,000 votes and Milosevic 4,853,497, and this has shrunk to 1,600,000, which is only 400,000 votes less that what the Serbian Radicalism of "Duke" Seselj got, and they were presented in the elections as a kind of sparring partner.

Academic Mihajlo Markovic claims that the appeals of the Church ("under influence from the side!") and the opposition for a boycott were to blame for only 10% of the people changing their minds and not voting in the "patriotic" elections. Things could easily be interpreted differently: a large number of people voted simply because of the open and fanatical threat that "he who doesn't appear...." would be put down on the list of traitors. In Valjevo there were more than 8,000 invalid ballots, among which 4,000 were completely empty. Of interest is that in Valjevo the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians got 1% of the votes, though in Valjevo there are no Hungarians. Also there is the fact that the Socialists only gained twice as many votes than were collected for a petition seeking Milosevic's resignation in March (800,000), and the number of votes for SPS is just over a fifth, which falls short of a quarter of the total number of voters.

There was a risk that the political scene would be divided between a disintegrating nomenclature, a party of generals and a party with exceptionally right wing tendencies, introducing an atmosphere of suspicion and persecution.

The Generals' party was wiped out, the Radicals were left in the cold (143:33), despite the considerable number of votes from the disappointed and vacillating classes and Milosevic's generous offer to enter into a coalition. The old ally SDS (Serbian Democratic Party) was left without a crumb.

The Serbian Radicals got the mandate in northern Banat amongst the settlers, in Srem amongst the refugees, in Kraljevo where there is a large colony of immigrants from Kosovo and in the city tissue of Belgrade, in Rakovica, in Zemun and in Novi Sad, precisely marking the points of possible social or nationalist conflict.

Seselj's first announcement after the elections was to do with social justice, as a condition for resisting the pressure. The ground is being prepared for war communism, for "revolutionary expropriation", only now less emphasis is given to its nationalist basis. Seselj's voters in Belgrade are probably in the class of poorer private enterprise like, for instance, taxi drivers, the owners of privately built houses, those who have spent a century trying to get closer to the big city in the illegally settled suburbs, those who moved into Belgrade but didn't melt into the its "melting pot". Seselj won around 40% of the votes in areas at the point of contact with Moslems, Albanians, in areas shadowed by Kosovo migration and frustration.

Milosevic is still ahead on the thin ice of Kosovo (9 to 14.4 percent of the registered voters per MP), but Kosovo can in no way be called a foothold. The victory of the most popular Serbian politician in Kosovo indicated that Milosevic is no longer invincible.

The unexpectedly high turnout of voters in Vojvodina is probably a result of the volatile mixture of refugee radicalism and an abhorrence of the same, which brought votes to the Socialists. The Hungarian national movement DZVM did a lot worse than was expected by its leaders.

The control over these elections was much less efficient than at the last. There was less interest on the part of the press, data were very slow in reaching the information center in the Serbian Parliament, the first calculations given to journalists were very approximate, informal and without any factual basis.

The computer installed in the hall of the Parliament was watched over by one plain clothed policeman, and an electronic simulation of the tunes of the two proposed national anthems could be heard on it. The votes took three days and three nights to count (12 hours over the deadline and even then, as VREME found out, they were still waiting for facsimile confirmation of results from around 40 election posts).

The number of registered voters in the last elections in December 1991 came to 7,033,610; it has not yet been explained why the current number of registered voters is only 6,848,246 (150,000 less) when in Serbia it is obvious that a large number of the hundreds of refugees voted, which is a direct and heartless trading on their misfortune. It isn't possible that the number of refugees from Serbia is twice as much, and even if it were, their names would have been crossed off the voters' lists.

Vuk Draskovic claims that only 20 to 30 percent of the voters took part in the elections. Zoran Djindjic says that the control carried out by members of the Democratic Party at 14 points uncovered a number of anomalies - voting took place without ID cards, there was a case of one person voting for nine members of his family.

The percentage of voters in a central city district officially came to 43, and in Barajevo reached the level of 62 percent. From a sociological point of view, Belgrade illustrates the structure of the whole of Serbia, it contains all the degrees of poverty Serbia has and some it multiplies....

The Socialists have their strongest foothold in eastern Serbia, and in the south (a third of the voters per MP), far from the centers which crucially influence the formation of serious political concepts. In Serbia the periphery rules the center.

These elections made clearer than the last the division between the young urban generations of Rock 'n' Roll which boycotted the elections, and "narodnjake" (modern folk song fans), which voted "to make things better". In this context, VREME's editor likes to say: "Is it possible that He (Milosevic) is the same age as Mick Jagger?"

The hour long protest of intelligent, discreet and ordered students of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, was accompanied by classical music and they protested by sitting down on the street, which is a novelty in relation to the iconography of opposition meetings. They then quietly announced that student associations were working on further action. On one of the few signs they carried was the following definition: "SPS = Guns 'n' Roses" - the rose being the emblem of the Socialists in their electoral campaign.

At a mid-week press conference, Vuk Draskovic announced that in a couple of weeks a meeting of endurance will be held in Belgrade and he indicated that the demonstration would not be led by any one party but by independent people of renown. The academic Matija Beckovic has invited the King.

On Thursday, Dragoljub Micunovic pointed out the people ready to bring down a whole nation from personal ambition and called on the Serbian Head of State to resign along with all his associates. The Democrats are asking for the forming of a "government of discontinuity" which would not be led by the Socialists.

Milosevic's resignation is being discussed in the Academy, at the University, by political parties. His ideologists and advisers no longer negate the fact that Milosevic's policy has brought on a catastrophe, but they fatalisticly repeat that there is no-one to replace him. The opposition's answer that what is needed is democracy and not another leader is something people here for some reason don't understand.

Just as Milosevic is mistaken in thinking that his power inside the country has been shaken, the opposition is mistaken in telling him that he hasn't won. It is not mistaken however in bringing attention to the catastrophe brought on by Milosevic. For the first time it has a strategic initiative which has brought about his trying to prove that he isn't "the enemy of the people". For this reason the "appeal to the conscience of our President in whose patriotism we have never doubted!" is an intelligent one. He is being offered the kingdom of heaven - to sacrifice his chair for the sake of the country! The explanation is rational - no-one accepts him as a negotiator and it is the interest of the nation to find someone who can negotiate the end of the war, an honorable peace and the return of Serbia to the international community.