The Shooting Frame

It could be said that the ever stronger political and propaganda pressure, and growing repression are the only, or at least, the basic ways in which Serbia's authoritarian regime is reacting to the rising national, social and political tensions, the rule being: the greater the conflict, the stronger the repression. However, the steel casing that has bound this regime is now being pressured by the outside world.

Will this frame (whatever it may be understood to mean) break now, or will the foreign pressure reinforce it and prolong indefinitely our staggering in its (His) steel embrace is, for Serbia, a question of "to be or not to be.

In the beginning, one faced an almost inexplicable paradox. To describe it in short: the country's disintegration, the national policy's utter fiasco, a blood stained war, the population's accelerated pauperization, total international isolation - everything taking place in just one and a half years, in Europe, but still without the logical and anticipated change of regime. This state of affairs has aroused the citizens' deep discontent: according to a poll of the Institute of Political Studies (IPS), in March, 63 percent of the population said they were highly dissatisfied with the position they were in and with the social situation in general.

The profundity of the discontent expressed in terms of their own and the entire social situation is, again, in a highly (expected) negative correlation to the loyalty to the ruling party (greater discontent, lower percent of SPS /Socialist Party of Serbia/ followers). Nonetheless, 16 percent of the dissatisfied citizens were in favor of this party, this being one third of its followers. This ten-odd percent of the electorate that, at one and the same time, expresses great dissatisfaction yet approves of the ruling party is, perhaps, the best description and living image of the paradox in question here, which is reduced to the question how does the regime stay in power, in spite of the citizens' profound discontent.

This trend of the citizens' political mood has produced a significant, continued drop in the number of SPS voters in the period between elections. Nonetheless, the SPS is still the strongest party on a one-to-one basis.

elections 30 Aug. '91 5 Nov. '91 5 Mar. '92 elections

9 Dec. '91 (IPS)* (IPS) (IPS) 31 May '92

SPS 32.8% 29.9% 29.8% 26.2% 24.%

* IPS (Institute for Political Studies, Belgrade)

Every attempt to review the paradox must start from the question who are the followers of the SPS and why did they see their political future in this party's platform? In other words how did the SPS win over their votes and score a victory at the elections? The typical media manipulation explanation is not enough, because it demands an answer to the question why is a good part of the electorate prone to such manipulation, and this in turn imposes the need to draft out the social and political picture of a part of the political public in which the ruling party finds its fulcrum.

The social portrait of SPS followers: All studies present a virtually identical picture of the ruling party's social base. The graph shows that senior citizens with a lower level of education are the party's mainstay, while pensioners, housewives and public sector workers (pictures 2, 3 and 4) are the most responsive to this party in the individual professions category. For comparison's sake, the graphs also show the influence of the Democratic Party (in certain professions and educational categories), and the democratic opposition parties (SPO /Serbian Renewal Movement), DS (Democratic Party), NSS (National Farmers' Party), RS (Reform Party) respectively in the age category. One can see that the democratic opposition parties are relying mostly on pupils and students, the unemployed and the freelancers, on the considerably younger population and the public with a much higher education on the average.

The layers of society in which the SPS had the most followers roughly represent half the electorate in Serbia, while those on which the opposition has greater influence constitute slightly over one fifth. The last census says that in Serbia there are 2,297,090 employees in the public sector and over one million pensioners (totaling some 3,300,000); on the other side, there are around 650 thousand unemployed people, around 530 thousand pupils and students and only some 170 thousand proprietors and employees in the private sector (a total of 1,350,000).

The group consisting of citizens without schooling, unskilled, semi-skilled and highly skilled workers (where the SPS has the most followers) is one and a half times larger than the group of citizens with secondary, junior college or university education, in which the influence of these two political groups was almost equal or the scales tipped slightly toward the democratic opposition.

Even though the SPS is the most influential party in the category of public sector workers, only slightly more than one quarter of this category is in favor of it.

The prevailing non-democratic, authoritarian, political culture is another important part of the social portrait of the part of the political public that supports the ruling party.

In the March political public opinion poll, the degree to which the citizens of Serbia favored authoritarian rule was measured on a special scale. The table shows that the SPS won the most votes (49.8 percent) in the group in which this characteristic is most expressed, and the least in the group that shows a non-authoritarian, democratic, orientation (7.9 percent).

The percentage of votes that some political parties win in groups expressing a high, medium and low degree of authoritarianism (March '92 - IPS)

party high medium low % of electorate

SPS 49.8% 24.4% 7.9% 26.2%

DS 3.2% 9.9% 23.7% 11.4%

SPO 0.8% 6.2% 11.1% 6.1%

Others 18.7% 30.4% 35.6% 29.1%

Undecided 27.5% 29% 21.7% 27.2%

The poll showed that the social layers in which the SPS has the most followers were the ones most attached to authoritarian rule.

Prior to the December elections, 28 percent of Milosevic followers, asked about the best form of government, said they preferred autocracy ("in a country, like in a family, one has to know who is the eldest, that is there must be one master whom everybody will listen"); choosing between the offered forms of social justice, 33 percent opted for the communist type of justice ("the state must ensure that everybody in society has the same and lives the same"). Asked about the role of the parties in political life in March this year, only 25 percent of SPS followers assessed this role as positive, and as many as 63.7 percent as negative. The negative assessment of the role of political parties is predominant in the social layers that favor the SPS above average: pensioners (58 percent), housewives (53 percent) and public sector workers (50.3 percent). Asked who they consider the main culprit for the situation in Serbia today, only 6 percent of SPS followers blame the Serbian leadership, and as many as 94 percent lay greatest blame on foreign enemies (the conspiracy of the foreign powers), or on enemies in Serbia.

Thus, even on the symbolical plane, one finds what was arrived at in the sphere of bare facts by observing the age structure of the existing regime's followers: the present regime is, essentially, gerontocratic. The old regime was a typical gerontocracy, because in the ruling elite one was unable to find a politician below the age of 60. Today's regime is gerontocratic as well, but the old age is now in its foundations, meaning old age in the biological, cultural and political sense alike.

The present ruling elite is certainly not gerontocratic in age, but realizing that the stronghold of its power lies precisely in the mentioned generation and cultural group, it willingly uses this group's thought patterns.

Part of the answer regarding these layers' above average support to the SPS can also be found in their real social position: they are the social categories which are non productive from both the biological and professional standpoint (pensioners, elderly people), that is less productive (public sector workers) and non creative, i.e. less creative (lower education, seniority of age). They did not see any prospects for themselves in the changes that were announced prior to the elections - changes that presume productivity and creativity as the basic preconditions for any kind of advancement. In a society where economic and social competition rules, they risked losing their portion of social power and their privileges, since their generation, intellectual and professional attributes render them, nonetheless, inferior to the other participants in the competition.

The reasons for the SPS's electoral victory in December 1990, and its complete political domination later on may be looked for in the following:

- prevalent in the electorate were social layers of which a good part held a conservative view regarding the advancing changes

- thanks to its media domination, the ruling party won over that part of the electorate which was opposed to changes, cementing the already existing fear of change; this conservative bloc could articulate its political thoughts though one party alone (the SPS), unlike other parts of the electorate (change-oriented) which were broken up politically into several larger and a multitude of smaller parties and citizens' groups

- the majority voting system more than doubled the politically concentrated force of the status quo.

Thus, Serbia's political life entered a vicious circle: the status quo supporters were not in the majority (they equaled between one quarter and one third of the electorate), but their political force, thanks to the concentration and the election system, multiplied: the deep discontent felt by as much as two thirds of the electorate considerably increased the change potential, but in its political expression this potential became scattered and appeared to be weaker compared to the strength of the status quo.

But, the aggravating war-time and foreign relations circumstances is upsetting the balance. It would appear that the opposite situation compared to the end of 1990 is on the rise: the status quo bloc is disintegrating, while the concentration of change oriented forces is forthcoming.

The circle of dissatisfied people is expanding quickly, and the bloc afraid of losing with the changes (for the simple reason that almost everything is lost already) is rapidly dissipating, while the SPS as the political representative of the status quo is experiencing a rift: in contrast to this, the change oriented part of society is assembling in ever increasing numbers in a joint movement, which many important social and national institutions and organizations are joining. Political changes are becoming inevitable.

A change of regime can be had only by avoiding the mistakes and naiveté of November 1990 and March 1991, when the political leadership of the movement for changes showed that it was no match for the Machiavellian ingenuity and unscrupulousness of the ruling elite and its leader.

On the other side, one must bear in mind that a change of regime is only the beginning, and that major trials are yet to come. The rapid impoverishment and years-long destructive propaganda has led to such a radicalization of the masses that it will be almost impossible to settle conflicts peacefully and prevent uncontrolled outbursts of wrath. Sixty five percent of Serbia's citizens believes that the country would not be in this situation had the army taken power at the very outset, arrested and tried the traitors, and imposed order in the country! Such an orientation of one third of the electorate is not the best guarantee that the changes will take the road of society's peaceful and democratic transformation.