POLITICS-BALKANS:
Serbia Now Faces a Royal Rescue
Vesna Peric Zimonjic
BELGRADE, Dec 9 (IPS) - For the first time since the end of World War II, royalty has
offered itself as a solution to Serbia's problems.
"The return of Serbia to constitutional, parliamentary monarchy would make its citizens proud, and secure respect for Serbia both at home and abroad," Prince Alexander II Karadjordjevic, son of the last king of former Yugoslavia said in Belgrade last week.
He spoke at a ceremony to mark the 85th anniversary of the proclamation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by his grandfather Alexander I Karadjordjevic.
That country was later named "Yugoslavia" (land of south Slavs). It fell apart in the bloody wars of disintegration of the 1990s. New independent states were created in those wars - Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia.
Serbia and Montenegro remain in a loose union proclaimed earlier this year under the auspices of the European Union. Their constitutional charter previsions a possibility of peaceful separation of the two by 2006. It says nothing about the monarchy.
Last week was the first time the Prince mentioned his political ambition. Born in Britain in 1945 where his family had fled from the German occupation of former Yugoslavia, Prince Alexander II returned to Belgrade only three years ago after the fall of the regime of Slobodan Milosevic.
The new administration let him live at the White Palace built by the Karadjordjevics in the 1930s. Over the past three years, the Prince and his wife Katherine have been engaged in charity.
But his new comments have sent ripples across the country, particularly because they were backed by the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Pavle.
In a public letter to the Prince the Patriarch called for "the restoration of monarchy at this sensitive moment." He added that the decades without monarchy were "the age of unprecedented tyranny."
Monarchy was abolished in 1945 by the victorious Yugoslav partisans led by the communist party which freed the country from Germans. Other parts of former Yugoslavia saw the fall of communism shortly before the disintegration of the country in the 1990s, but in Serbia it went only with the fall of Milosevic in 2000.
Restoration of monarchy is seen as a highly sensitive political question.
Serbia has no president. Three elections to find one have failed since September 2002. Early parliamentary elections are due December 28. These were forced by opposition parties that challenged the swift but painful economic reforms in a country devastated by a decade of Milosevic's rule.
Both the public, and analysts are deeply divided on the monarchy.
"This is an effort by the Orthodox Church to use the power vacuum in the country and re-enter the political scene as the decisive factor," analyst Ivan Torov told IPS. The church had an important place in the Karadjordjevics kingdom.
Major political parties who have entered the parliamentary race are strongly republican, except for the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) of Vuk Draskovic. This party is expected to win only a few seats in the 250-member parliament.
Some political leaders say a referendum should be held on monarchy.
"But the king and monarchy stand no chance," leading sociologist Srecko Mihajlovic told IPS. "All the surveys conducted after 1990 showed that between eight and 18 percent of the people favour monarchy." Currently, support for the monarchy stands at 15 percent, polls show.
Montenegrin President Filip Vujanovic has warned Belgrade that "the call for the restoration of monarchy can endanger the state union of Serbia and Montenegro." Vujanovic said introduction of monarchy in Serbia would cause confusion because "a monarchy (in Serbia) and the republic (in Montenegro) would have to exist simultaneously."
The experience in neighbouring countries shows that "there is no return to the traditional kind of monarchy, although those royal homes shared the destiny of the Karadjordjevics," historian Vasilije Krestic told IPS.
In neighbouring Albania the heir to the throne Leka Zogu (64) waits for the return of his property after the government decided last August to return all the confiscated real estate. He has been living in the country since 2002.
A referendum on the monarchy was held in Albania after the fall of communism in the early 90s. Two-thirds of Albanians opposed it.
Mihai of Romania (78) who ruled briefly over his homeland in the 1940s was given the title "former head of state" after the fall of communism. He has a state pension and can live at premises once taken away from his family.
Only Simeon II of Bulgaria has made a real political comeback. His party, the National Movement "Simeon II" won parliamentary elections in 2001. The once heir to the throne is now the Prime Minister. (END/2003)
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