Branko Kostic as a Trojan Horse

Svetozar Marovic remains the only DPS (Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro) candidate for president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). As we have unofficially learned, this was agreed at a closed session of the DPS Main Board, convened because of Mr. Seselj's (Serbian Radical Party - SRS) decision to nominate Mr. Branko Kostic as future president of the new Yugoslavia. As this article is going to print, no official communiqué has been issued yet. But along with the aforementioned information, we managed to find out that most of the Main Board members were displeased because they had to discuss the candidacy issue once again, and this has apparently increased the discord within the Board and the Party itself.

Many people are casting the blame on Branko Kostic, who could have resolved everything in Belgrade by declining the candidacy. Especially because he knew that Mr. Marovic was nominated as the only candidate from Montenegro in order to avoid a dispersion of votes and to simplify the election of the new president. On the other hand, Mr. Kostic is criticized for joining the game, by no means accidentally, which could result in the Montenegrin candidate's defeat in the Federal Parliament because he is unable to accept the fact that someone other than him from Montenegro could become the president of the new Yugoslavia "after all he did" to preserve the old one. Moreover, it is openly claimed that the whole mess surrounding Mr. Marovic's candidacy is nothing more than a paving of the way for Dobrica Cosic to be elected president, and that the creation of the new state under the name of Yugoslavia is just a cover-up for the annexation of Montenegro. The arguments for this claim are drawn from the fact that it's being promised throughout Serbia that the name "Yugoslavia" will not last long, and from the fact that many federal MPs have too often made the slip "Serbia, pardon me, Yugoslavia".

The question is to what extent has the Montenegrin leadership preserved its will to complete the work on constituting the new state? The Montenegrin Presidency has said that it has thoroughly studied the opposition's demands for the establishment of a coalition government (of national or citizens' salvation), and that it has already called upon the parliamentary opposition parties to send two representatives each to talks scheduled for June 17. In any case, something is cooking in Montenegro. There are conflicts in the ranks of the ruling party, even within the leadership, and in the opposition parties too. The Socialist party has said that a violent overthrowing of the Montenegrin government is out of question, but that after the possible downfall of Milosevic, it has no moral rights to stay on.