A Miraculous State Secret

On February 10, on the occasion of the election of the Serbian Government, the political leaders of Serbia announced that the responsibility for the economic catastrophe will be "fully and completely" handed over to the federal government, and even the new Prime Minister Nikola Sainovic stressed that "in future, federal functions should not be effected in a half-way manner". It is true that this is not a new idea, as it was also expressed practically verbatim in May last year by the former Serbian prime minister. Nikola Sainovic said that the Serbian measures "can be overcome only through the consistent taking over by the federation of constitutional competencies in the field of economic trends".

Naturally, Sainovic could not admit that, in the midst of a social and economic chaos, the Serbian leadership has no plan of its own and that it is handing everything over to some new federal government. This is why he said that his government "will define some plans publicly, while others will be a state secret". Mocking this explanation, Zoran Djindjic of the Democratic Party said that, after hearing Sainovic's speech, he had come to the conclusion that his whole economic program was a state secret.

Maybe Sainovic counted on the fact that this thesis of a "secret plan" could have the well-known and beneficial effect of a "secret weapon," of which rumors are always spread by military leaders before a defeat. And perhaps it is better to view things in a more mundane manner and search for a miraculous secret plan against inflation, hunger and poverty in his statement that: "in conditions of a blockade, it is not possible to coordinate supply and demand merely by market laws" so that "rational regulations" must be put into effect "in the field of prices and salaries".

Although it was known even before the election of the new government that the Serbian Radical Party, presently powerful in the assembly, would not demand a position in the government and that it would support it only within the framework of a sort of "principled coalition" and not an official one, the statements of Radical Party deputies were awaited with interest. Deputies from Seselj's party were meek, so that warnings that this would be a "minority government" and a government which would constantly be closely monitored and checked by the Serbian radicals - were less frequent than expressions of loyalty. In spite of this, even the Radicals could not avoid pointing out the emptiness of the program set out in Sainovic's speech, and they generously offered the ruling party the use of their programs.

There are no surprising changes in the composition of the Serbian Government, although there is a surprising continuity. New among the deputy prime ministers are Danilo Z. Markovic (who retained the Ministry of Education) and Dragoslav Jovanovic, the former Federal Minister of Finance. The old trio retains the posts of Foreign Minister, Minister of the Interior and Minister of Defence.

The new ministers are Slavoljub Stanic (finances), Radoslav Mitrovic (foreign trade), Tomislav Ilic (justice), Momir Pavlicevic (industry), Vladimir Zivanovic (electric-power supply), Milos Banicevic (health), Bogoljub Bjelica (Serbs outside Serbia), Djoko Stojicic (culture) and Slobodan Unkovic (science and technology).