Podgorica weekly 'Monitor' brought in its issue of December 12, 1997, an analysis of the Parliamentarian elections in Republica Srpska written by Bozo Nikolic.
The hard core nationalists did not succeed in securing the majority in the last month's parliamentary elections in Republika Srpska. The results show that there is no clear winner in the clash for power between the followers of the suspected war criminal Radovan Karadzic and his main rival, the president of the Serbian entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Biljana Plavsic.The official results of the OESCE show that the hard liners lost their ground, but that they remain as the strongest faction in the Parliament.
The SDS hard liners (who won 24 seats) have lost the exclusive control of the media and have suffered political damage in the fight for power with Biljana Plavsic, whose newly formed party, Serbian National Alliance (SNS) won 15 seats.
The absentee votes, the euphemism of the OESCE for the exiled Muslims and Croats, who voted for the parties from the Muslim-Croat federation part of the BiH, prevented any Serbian faction to win solid majority.
Krajisnik and the rest of the hard liners are bringing into question the number of seats which were won by the political parties supported by the hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Croats who were exiled during the three and a half year long war. The results show that the formation of the new government and the division of power in the parliament will depend on future coalitions.
The diplomats in Sarajevo insist that Karadzic's hard liners intensively work on winning the members of the RS Socialist Party (SP RS), to whom the nine parliamentary seats give an enormous role in the decision making whether the SDS and RS will form a valid government, which would hold Plavsic faction on the sidelines. The leaders of the SP RS have publicly supported Plavsic, but analysts say that it is not impossible that some of the members of the party fall under the heavy pressure of the guardian of the Bosnian Serbs, FRY President Slobodan Milosevic. It is also possible that SP RS will not support any of the leading parties.
The US State Department asked the RS leadership to form a 'moderate' government. So, the political bargaining again gives Milosevic the chance in deciding who will rule on the Serb territory in BiH, the role he enjoyed in the period of the war there.
If the hard liners do not succeed in securing the majority, the divided Parliament would enable president Plavsic to name a transitional government, which would be supplant the current one of prime minister Gojko Klickovic, dominated by Karadzic's clique. Then new elections would ensue. Theoretically, SNS could attempt to secure a majority by forming a union with Muslim dominated parties, but the nationalistic climate which still dominates in RS makes that practically unthinkable. But, the parties from FBH will probably support SNS in case of any important decisions. In any case, it is estimated that recently formed pro - Western party of Ms Plavsic had a relatively successful showing, and that it could, in a coalition with other parties, to seriously threaten the continuation of Karadzic's control of the regime.
Theoretically, the parties that oppose Karadzic could have the majority of 44 seats. But Krajisnik has warned recently: 'There will be no government... without the SDS and patriotic forces'. The analysts take this as an indication that pro-Karadzic brotherhood is more ready to divide RS, which it is de facto, rather than permit a government in which it is not participating.
In any case, the results of the elections have indicated that the rivalries between the two factions could probably be continued, further dividing the Serbian half - state which comprises half of BiH.