Body and Soul

On returning from Russia, Slobodan Radulovic (Director of a chain of supermarkets), the future minister, resigned from all posts in the Democratic Party (DS) and agreed to withdraw his membership. He will be physically present in the government, but his soul will remain in the DS. Radulovic believes that it is important for him to be a member of Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic's cabinet. He speaks well of Marjanovic now, even though he was rather critical of him in the Belgrade weekly "Intervju" less than three weeks ago.

Radoje Djukic who owns a firm which produces knitwear, also agreed to enter the new Cabinet. He left the DS leadership a little before Radulovic. DS leader Zoran Djindjic has been left without two top DS members who backed him during the campaign, but who have decided that they wish to continue without him.

The DS holds the sensitive center in Serbian politics, and has now entered a new phase of internal problems. Former DS leader Dragoljub Micunovic and Djindjic parted definitely on February 1 at the DS convention. DS spokesman Borislav Kuzmanovic and DS executive director Zeko Bojovic also resigned.

It was generally believed that Djindjic would enter the government, but his position was rather isolated and he was much weaker than it seemed at first glance. Djindjic tried to pacify relations within the party, and to establish himself as the opposition leader in negotiations with the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), and win as many points as possible. He said that the DS had not entered the elections in order to be in authority. Early in February Djindjic said that "there would be no compromise with the SPS". On February 4, the DS withdrew its candidate for the post of Serbian Assembly deputy Speaker and announced that "the party will continue to cooperate with other opposition parties in parliament, in spite of the mud-slinging campaign over the election of Speaker." The DS called a press conference on February 9, and top DS official Miroljub Labus said that the door to reaching an agreement was not closed, and that the DS was prepared to come to an agreement with the SPS and with the opposition, if the SPS was willing to ease up, since this was the only way an agreement could be reached.

Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) leader Vuk Draskovic said in an interview to Radio Jagodina on February 5, that "it was necessary to reach a political agreement for the sake of the people and Serbia". Draskovic said he believed that "an agreement with the SPS can be reached", that the "SPS isn't terribly stubborn, but that the opposition is divided and has never kept its word since 1990".

This situation has shaken the very fabric of the opposition, if it has not been torn apart irretrievably. At a special session of the Serbian Assembly which discussed taxes, it was seen that the SPS did not need 126 deputies to rule, 85 were enough.

Viewed objectively, it was impossible to put together a mosaic consisting of war parties, pacifist parties, criminals and victims, looters and those who had been robbed, tricksters and those who had been cheated, war mongers and peace-makers, cartographers and liberals, Yugo-nostalgia sufferers and Serbian separatists, pro-Yeltsin and pro-Zhirinovsky supporters...

The regime's alleged pressure on the opposition to enter the government was a pretext for accusations of "breaking up national unity", characteristic of a country with 170 political parties. Thanks to fate and the work of the Secret Police, these parties formed 5-7 irreconcilable groups. The so-called "3D" opposition (the Democratic Party-DS, the Democratic Party of Serbia-DSS, the Democratic Movement of Serbia-DEPOS) has, in the meantime, become the "4D" opposition (DS, DSS, DEPOS, ND-PS - New Democracy-Movement for Serbia), and is showing a tendency towards becoming the "5D" opposition (DSS, DS/Djindjic, DS/Micunovic, ND-PS, DEPOS). In the existing confusion, the SPS have managed to break the unnatural rapprochement between the "opposition" and the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), and to strike a blow to all the parties.

DEPOS has split, and within it, the SPO. The Democrats are splitting and so are the Radicals in Montenegro. Only the Socialists have managed to rally their membership successfully, even though it is obvious, that if the circumstances were different, they would be at each other's throats.