The results of the Serbian elections are also analyzed by Milan Milosevic in the October 11, 1997 issue of the Belgrade weekly "Vreme".The second round of the Serbian presidential elections was portrayed by the foreign press as a race between a puppet and a scarecrow (the words of Paris daily Le Figaro). The London Independent said the choice facing supporters of the moderate democratic opposition would be narrow and depressing in the October 5 second round when Slobodan Milosevic's puppet Zoran Lilic stood against the aggressive Vojislav Seselj. Milosevic did keep control but the aura of invincibility is gone, the Wall Street Journal said.
The London Times predicted correctly that Seselj, who it called a very dangerous man, could win the votes of people who want to see anyone but the Socialists in power.
The foreign press seemed to be more scared of the possible outcome of the Serbian elections than the electorate here.
The Serbian electorate staged an amazing repeat performance of its gullibility, with a lack of caring for its own future and merrily accepting its own fall when it once again chose an option that is threatening to take this country backwards and distancing it from the world for a long period at a moment when chaos and poverty can only be avoided by the country rejoining the world and allowing the world to help. Serbia seems to have come just a couple of hundred thousand votes short of being ruled by a right wing nationalist for years to come. The second round was invalid because not enough people turned out to vote, but Serbian Radical Party (SRS) leader Vojislav Seselj won more votes than Socialist candidate Zoran Lilic. Seselj won just over 1.7 million votes, or three times more than his SRS won in 1993, and 600,000 more than he won two weeks earlier in the first round.
The SRS keeps saying the wave of Radicalism is spreading triumphantly while the western press says Serbia is facing another catastrophe. Western foreign ministers debated the negative signals coming out of Serbia, and Moscow voiced concern. US special envoy for the former Yugoslavia, Robert Gelbard, who always voices future great power policies when he's here, said in Belgrade on the Monday after the second round that he doesn't think the US administration could work with Seselj because he's anti-democratic, a fascist who represents backwardness, polarization and darkness.
Seselj's response to that was that Gelbard could go with the stroke of a pen when the US administration improves its relations with the Radicals. He added that the statements by Gelbard and Kinkel came too late, because he would have been president if they had been made a day earlier.
That reaction illustrates the Seselj phenomenon where the unbearable ease of destruction combines with mass humiliation in poverty and a few fossilized remains of political tradition.
Seselj is repeating the same phrases now that Milosevic used in 1992. When he cast his vote on October 5, Seselj said that his victory would ``annul any possibility of Serbia kneeling before any western power.'' Another phenomenon is that in Serbian politics, any Serb nationalist program was always against the status quo because of the large number of Serbs outside Serbia. Traditionally Serbs from outside Serbia always played a special role in Serbia and that role changed depending on the times. They had a disproportionate influence on Serbian politics in the process of Serbia's national and cultural revival, in the constituting of Yugoslavia as the main advocate of that idea, and, as W.W.II partisans, they played a key role in the reintegration of Yugoslavia. Seselj seems to be the personification of those feelings today and the reaction to the national defeat which is pulling the country down.
Technically, this phenomenon could be described in another way: for a whole century engineers have been building north-south railroads while national strategists have been taking the people from east to east and back.
When Seselj appeared as a big power in politics, with the help of the Socialists in 1992, analysts made cynical comments comparing their relationship to that of Hindenburg and the chancellor. These elections have caused some analysts to make comparisons with the 1932 elections in the Weimar republic. Let's be cynical to the end and add two vital differences to the images of poverty, social degradation, uncertainty and defeat: between 1924 and 1929, big companies like Krupp, IG-Farbenindustrie and Thyssen were expanding in the Weimar republic and we're seeing none of that here, also Hindenburg is healthy.
Vladimir Goati of the Social Sciences Institute feels the Radicals are a socially well based party. Their electorate is similar to that of the Socialists; workers (mainly low paid), some farmers, the elderly. Goati said the reason why the Radicals are strong in Vojvodina is because ethnic radicalism is usually stronger in ethnically diverse environments. Seselj's sympathizers are not the proletariat but older workers in old clothes and middle aged women with a few young people and very few businessmen. The impression is that they're people who aren't well off but had more once and don't know whether they'll ever get anything. They're people who will tell you that there's a simple fault in the state which should be corrected quickly.
I'm more prone to believing that the rise in Radicalism is more easily explained from below (social circumstances, people's inability to continue waiting for a solution to the crisis) than from above (the abilities of the leader).
Slobodan Milosevic appeared in 1987, seven years after the escalation of the Kosovo crisis. Seselj is expanding seven years after the state fell apart and his influence will probably grow as the agony goes on. The ruling party is used to cohabitation with the Radicals and maybe it doesn't feel the need to clash with them even while they're threatening to endanger its dominance. The only way to limit radicalism is to implement quick, fundamental and painful reforms which the ruling party is hesitant to do.
Journalists have written extensively about Seselj's political abilities and he seems not to have made a single mistake. That is exaggeration.
Seselj has appeared on TV hundreds of time and always said basically the same thing. Apart from the fact that he's louder and more arrogant than others and his lies are simpler, he doesn't have a single advantage.
He's a dull orator who attacks the helpless, ignores chivalry, offers false solutions and, objectively, works towards the common bad. Part of the secret to his success lies in the fact that he makes good assessments of what his opponents will do and in the final analysis all his opponents helped him along. The Socialists helped him last winter when they called their own citizens traitors. The ethnic Albanian demonstrations just before the elections had to draw a response from Serb nationalism. The crisis, mass depression and feeling of hopelessness create a desire for a strong man.
Eeryone allowed Seselj to portray himself as that man. The Zajedno coalition broke up almost before it took power in the cities and its rule was tainted by money scandals, nepotism, lack of cooperation and management expertise.
In the finals of the election campaign, the Zajedno coalition partners in Belgrade traded accusations of embezzlement. Reporters asked Vuk Draskovic whether Djindjic's dismissal was a personal vendetta. Draskovic said: ``Of course! He betrayed the coalition. I created him and I removed him. I did nothing bad.'' Djindjic's boycott lowered Draskovic's chances of possibly eliminating Seselj in the first round. Draskovic's decision to run lowered the chances of the boycott succeeding. The old demarcation lines were removed and new ones put in place and the semblance of new alliances appeared. Once the first round of the elections was over Draskovic roughly grabbed Studio B with the help of the SRS and Socialists and brought in people who did not hide their joy at being able to bring Seselj to the station for the finish of his campaign.
Only Seselj profited from the escalation of that conflict. He calmly reaped the benefits of the clash and the benefits of the strategy of the Socialists who paid for SRS services to the point that their candidate failed.
All told, the Socialists underestimated Seselj, whether because of Montenegro or other things. Their election strategy was focused on Djindjic for months. The outcome of the September elections left no party dominant and now they'll have to find some kind of compromise.
Political power won't be measured in votes but in coalition potentials. About 10 different combinations appeared after the parliamentary elections. The more or less probable combinations are three big coalitions (SPO SPS, SPS-SRS, SRS-SPO); three lesser Socialist coalitions which would get the support of the SRS or SPO or both; one with the three biggest parties (SPS, SRS, SPO); a national unity government including all parliamentary parties; a national salvation government which would include all parliamentary parties, influential experts and even politicians who boycotted the elections; and finally, there might not be a new government but the old one will stay in place.
Goati believes the Socialists can't work with the Radicals because of the ruling party's western aspirations. He thinks the SPO has the greatest coalition potential.
An SPO spokesman said his party won't join a coalition with the Socialists and added that he has no doubt that the Socialists and Radicals will reach an agreement on a parliament speaker with the Radicals supporting the Socialist minority as they did once before.
That same day, Seselj said that's a momentary whim and the SPO spokesman will be proved wrong. He spoke of SRS readiness to discuss a coalition. Draskovic wouldn't like a coalition with the Radicals because he needs legitimacy in the eyes of the west more than Milosevic and he could loose it easily. Draskovic already endangered his western ratings by taking control of Studio B and bringing in a former station chief who made about 100 people leave.
One of the conclusions that could have been drawn before the second round was that a repeat of the presidential elections is inevitable. There was speculation that the Socialists might change the law on the election of the president and leave out the part that says a turnout of over 50% is needed for the elections to be valid.
The Serbian electorate's tendency to obey the law proved me right when I warned that 3.5 million people would always turn out to vote no matter what. Goati feels that Seselj did not win the votes of people who boycotted the first round. His extra votes came from SPO supporters despite Draskovic's call to his voters not to turn out.
Seselj and Draskovic joined forces once for a short time in 1990 but their conflict is long term and in the end of his campaign Draskovic called Seselj a fascist.
Goati says the SPO started its clash with Djindjic's DS as the start of a stage of bringing back traditional values and national rhetorics and inadvertently sent a signal about a tactical alliance to his voters.
Goati recalled that since 1992 the Socialists and Radicals always won between 2.2 and 2.5 million votes together. The line between regime and opposition was hard to cross to date. Now the Radicals are showing a surprising ability to expand in an obvious direction. Goati feels that the presidential elections are quite different to the finish of the presidential campaign because it includes the elimination of others and once a voter's favorite is out of the game, he'll cast his vote for his second or third choice.
Things might never be the same again. Seselj said some 500,000 SPO voters voted for him and added that they'll never go back to Draskovic. The SPO admitted that 500,000 of its voters voted for Seselj in the second round because they wanted to vote against the communists. So what if the presidential race is run again with the same candidates?
Goati thinks it would be wrong to believe that the outcome would be the same. Since voters are going through a process of social learning they would concentrate their votes on the main two candidates in the first round. The winner of the second round might even increase his lead. The outcome might change if new candidates appear, depending on who they are.
Zoran Djindjic said a day after the second round that a wide democratic block could be formed to nominate a presidential candidate in the next elections. ``Over the next 20 days we'll name some people who will represent Serbia's desire not to be seen as the last authoritarian bastion,'' Djindjic said after his meeting with Robert Gelbard. Before that he spoke of a shadow government. Similar ideas have been coming from Vesna Pesic's GSS and from Cedomir Antic, leader of the Student Political Club. Instead of election conditions, Djindjic is now demanding that the population be told the truth about the situation in the country and he's demonstrating his ability to maneuver. He concluded that the boycott didn't work and he's playing a game of ``declare victory and run.''
Source: Belgrade weekly "Vreme", October 11, 1997
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