Enchantment of Morava's Promiscuity

"All games performed by the Jagodina township president’s councilor and seven committee members who usurped power will be held up, if an agreement on the entry of the SSJ into the Association for Changes is reached", says for VREME Miodrag Nikolic Feman, a member of the main and executive council of the Democratic Party, and president of the Morava district committee. "My estimation, based on talks between the president of that party's presidency, Borislav Pelevic, and our president, Zoran Djindjic, at which I was present, is that SSJ has, to a great extent, moved to the right-wing, and that it opposes the left block due to the handing over of Kosovo," continues Miodrag Nikolic, while in his office, in Jagodina's industrial zone, where we are monitoring various corners of the metal factory he owns. "It is not true that the entry of SSJ into the Association for Changes was in question.", says Zoran Djindjic, president of the Democratic Party. "I have been to Jagodina to talk to the committee members who have transferred from the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) to SSJ, in order to see if they are still remaining part of the opposition block, or if instead they are willing, together with the Socialists, to overthrow the township government. They tried to convince us of their oppositional determination, but they stated certain conditions for the distribution of functions." Zoran Djindjic says that the conversation referred only to cooperation in Jagodina, and that local organs of the Association for Changes do not exist. "I have nothing against any expansion of the Association, but one should look from the real side. I know nothing about the performance of SSJ. So far, we have not had any contacts with them, nor have any of us requested contact." Dr. Djindjic, however, did not reject every possibility for cooperation." They wanted us to consider the possibility of inter-party relations. We told them that we would need to experience how that cooperation would function in Jagodina first, and that it should progress gradually. Then, we should see who those people are and how they will show themselves getting down to work.", says Djindjic.

Dragan Markovic Palma, deputy of the president of SSJ, claims for VREME that conversations about cooperation between the central headquarters of DS and SSJ are being held. This famous businessman from Jagodina and the owner of the TV station 'Palma plus’ adds, however, that the talks are related only to cooperation between these two parties, and that "other parties have not been mentioned." Dragan Markovic did not want to explain to us what kind of cooperation was actually in question, but VREME sources from SSJ emphasize that "the agreement about some details has not yet been reached." At first, the cooperation would apparently take place in the Morava district, in Montenegro and in Kosovo.

"We do not operate in Montenegro. We have supported Mr. Djukanovic and the ‘Let's Live Better’ Coalition, and Mr. Pelevic did the same. The cooperation exists only in that sense.", says Zoran Djindjic. "As far as Kosovo is concerned, we will see about the elections. We are ready for any kind of cooperation that can bring about changes."

YES AND NO: In Jagodina, in the beginning of October, seven committee members changed camps. Six former SPO members, then the independent committee group ‘G - 10’ which was founded last summer, and finally Biserka Zivadinovic from DS, all became members of the SSJ. Therefore, the committee groups that had been formed out of the former ‘Zajedno’ Coalition nominally lost their majority in the township parliament.

"Now we both have and don’t have the majority.", says to VREME Vasilije Todorovic, president of Jagodina township. "We did lose the majority officially on paper, but not during the voting."

Since October 3rd, the day the committee transfer occurred, the parliament has held a single conference, on October 20th, at which the Declaration of Kosovo was adopted, and it was decided that the families of the killed policemen and soldiers (members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - MUP and the Yugoslav Army) from Jagodina, should be granted some financial help. Although some months ago, twenty-one committee members of DS, along with the independent committee group (now SSJ) signed the initiative for the replacement of all township officials, it happened that it was not voted on. That initiative was withdrawn on October 1st. The Democratic Party has ‘frozen’ its share of the initiative, whereas the current committee members of SSJ have revoked their signatures. Dragan Markovic Palma explains that that was done as a result of the air strike threats, when everyone was compelled to direct the best of their abilities towards the realization of the Kosovo problem.

"When the time comes, we will renew this initiative with a fresh program", says Dragan Markovic to VREME. Vasilije Todorovic informed us about his intentions to call a new conference of the township parliament in December, when the temporary township budget for 1999 will be defined.

THE PARLIAMENT ALCHEMY: Even the best connoisseurs of parliament conditions and occasions in Jagodina are unable to deduce a precise calculation on the number of members each committee club consists of. The problem is that 28 out of 61 members have changed their parties since the constitution of the township government was set at the beginning of last year.

Jagodina was one of the victims at the local elections in 1996. According to the election results of November 17th the same year, the 'Zajedno' Coalition gained 35 out of 63 committee seats in the township parliament, while the left-wing coalition had only 22 (SPS 17, JUL 5). After Socialist complaints and five election circles, it somehow happened that both coalitions had 28 committee seats each. The Radical Party (SRS) had three seats, SSJ had only one, whereas three committee members belonged to neither party. According to these results, on February 3rd 1997, the left-wing formed the township government. For the township president, they elected Zivotije Jovanovic, the current federal representative of JUL, while Dragan Markovic Palma from SSJ, was appointed to be the vice-president. On the same day, the 'Zajedno' Coalition held a constitutive conference, based on the same results. The function of the president of Jagodina township was allocated to Vasilije Todorovic from SPO, that of vice-president to Snezana Mitrovic from DS, while Miodrag Nikolic Feman became president of the Executive Council. The left-wing of the township leaders submitted their resignations, a few days later.

Lex specialis legalized the following distribution of mandates: 'Zajedno' 36 (SPO 17, DS 14, DSS 4, GSS 1), the left-wing 21 (SPS 17, JUL 4), the Radicals 3, and three candidates from a group of citizens. The parliament did not verify the mandate of the Socialist Party's committee member, Dr. Mirjana Markovic, and Vladan Kovacevic from the Serbian Renewal Movement resigned. The supplementary elections for these two committee seats have not yet been carried out, so the parliament operates with only 61 committee members. The Serbian Radical Party (SRS) lost all three members as soon as they entered the township building. One of them transferred to SSJ, the other to SPO, and the third one to the Serbian Democratic Party (DSS).

Afterwards, the three independent members and one member of the SPO club became members of JUL, from where another member transferred to the Democratic Party. Last Autumn, another two SPO representatives joined the Democrats, while one of the Democrats sought reception in the SPO. Finally, last summer, ten representatives resigned from the SPO committee group and formed the independent group, known as 'G - 10'. They were discontented with the president of the district committee of SPO, Dragan Tadic, against whom they signed the petition. Six members of 'G - 10' now joined the SSJ.

At the moment, the Democratic Party's club has got 16 committee members (the rest of the independent ones joined them); the Socialist Party also has 16 members; the Party of Serbian Unity has 9, while JUL and SPO have seven, respectively. The Serbian Democratic Party's club has 5 members, while GSS has only one.

THE SECRET TRICKS: The township's Executive Council is a separate story. This organ had 11 members in the first place, 5 from SPO, 4 from DS, and 1 from DSS and GSS each. The president of that council, Miodrag Nikolic Feman, submitted his resignation on July 3rd this year.

"I have been outvoted every time.", he says.

According to the township statute, the president's resignation annuls the mandates of all committee members. Nikolic says that the release of the three members of the Executive Council (IO), who had previously been dismissed from SPO, without reason, was discussed at the last parliament conference. The other seven members of IO continued to work until now, even though their mandate ceased five months ago. The parliament appointed Ratko Bojic, a member of the Democratic Party, as president instead of Nikolic.

The new president of IO says in the interview for the local newspaper 'Novi Put': "The new structure of IO has already been suggested and will be announced when the township president calls the parliament. It only remains to consult the representatives of SSJ, who are going to be members of the new IO." The parliament statistics point to the fact that DS and SSJ have 25 committee members altogether. "We can count on another representative, but his name is kept secret for political reasons.", says Miodrag Nikolic. "SSJ is assuring us that they too have one secret representative." However, the total is 27, and to have a majority in Jagodina's parliament means to have at least 31 seats. "We also count on the DSS committee group, and then we would have 32 votes.", says Nikolic. We tried to find out the opinion on these matters from the DSS committee in the Jagodina township, whose competence includes a conjunction of coalitions at the local level, but up to the point of printing this text, we did not manage to contact them.

Celebration

On Tuesday, there was a celebration of an anniversary of the 'Palma' enterprise in Jagodina. Dragan Markovic informed us, the day before the celebration, that he expected the arrival of certain members of the Serbian Government: Tomislav Nikolic, Aleksandar Vucic and Rade Trajkovic. Minister of Internal Affairs of Serbia, Zivadin Jovanovic, who belongs to Jagodina's personnel, and Dr. Zoran Djindjic were also invited.