YUGOSLAVIA: Opposition Victory Recognised In Belgrade

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric-Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Jan 14 1997 (IPS) - The Belgrade electoral commission conceded defeat Wednesday and confirmed the opposition’s victory in the Nov. 17 city council elections, meeting a key demand of the hundreds of thousands now on their eighth week of daily street protest.

Radomir Lazarevic, president of the commission (GIK), told a press conference Tuesday that the Zajedno opposition coalition had won 60 out of 110 seats, with 23 going to the ruling Socialist party and a leftist ally. Another 15 seats went to the ultra-nationalist Serb Radical Party and two to small Democratic Party of Serbia.

“There is no sensation in our decision,” he insisted. “There were no pressures or blackmail. We adhered to the law to protect the basic rights of the citizens,” Lazarevic added.

The fate of ten seats other seats was not yet decided, and new votes would have to be called, but the results will not jeopardise Zajedno’s majority.

No sooner had the Zajedno victory on Nov. 17 been declared, supporters of president Slobodan Milosevic’s Socialist party and the Yugoslav United Left (JUL) run by his wife, challenged the results in local courts around the country. The state appointed judges promptly annulled the votes in constituencies won by the opposition.

The result of the clampdown instead provoked mass support for democratisation, protests that drew up to 400,00 people and finally the intervention of a mission led by former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). It concluded that the opposition had won the day fairly in Belgrade and 14 other major Serbian towns.

The new announcement of GIK came only two days before the OSCE in Vienna is due to review Serbia’s reply to the mission’s findings, prompting fears that the announcement was a stalling bid.

Opposition leaders Vuk Draskovic and Zoran Djindjic warned Tuesday that the GIK announcement was only “a partial answer from Milosevic” to the OSCE.

“There is practically nothing he can give us,” Draskovic said. “The votes were ours back in November.” Djindjic warned Milosevic not to forget the other cities in Serbia that Zajedno had won.

In the meantime, Zajedno stepped up its efforts to secure allies abroad in its battle to get the regime to recognise its victories.

Vesna Pesic, the third leader of Zajedno, was in Paris Monday and Tuesday for talks with the french foreign minister. Italy’s junior foreign minister, Piero Fassino, also started talks with leaders of both government and opposition Tuesday in Belgrade ahead of the trio of opposition leaders’ scheduled trip to Rome Friday.

At the five member Contact Group of nations, in Brussels over the weekend, U.S. assistant State secretary John Kornblum said that Washington was looking into a four-point “action plan” by which the US could unilaterally help democratisation in Serbia.

The Contact Group also discussed ways of putting pressure on Belgrade to accept the OSCE report in full. Reports here said options included the freezing of trade and official relations with Serbia, to ensure continued international focus by international organisations on the situation, to increase democratisation assistance and target structural obstacles to democracy.

Expanding on the four-point plan, a statement from US officials said Washington was considering denying an application by Yugoslav Airlines for landing rights in the United States. The US would also swiftly approve an assistance programme that would focus on helping independent media and electoral organisations.

Zajedno, in the meantime, urged the army and police to declare their position on alleged demands from government supporters that the protests be crushed. The coalition claimed the Socialists and the JUL were “seeking to provoke large-scale conflict and impose an official state of emergency in Serbia”.

The independent daily Nasa Borba quoted a “well placed and reliable source” in the Socialist party on Monday citing a Socialist-JUL leadership meeting held last Friday. According to the source, JUL leader Mira Markovic and close associates, called for “swift action against fascists in the Belgrade streets”, describing the demonstrators as “mercenaries and foreign spies”.

Support for violent repression is believed to be weak in the army and weakening among the police after eight weeks of anti-Milosevic protests.

But a recent poll sponsored by Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty and Voice of America showed that almost half of a sample of 2,037 people surveyed believed that Milosevic would not give up power peacefully. Overall 31 percent said they wanted Milosevic to resign.

“Given the political circumstances in Serbia today, the fact that nearly a third openly expressed this view is significant,” Robert Gillette, director of broadcasting at RFE/RL told Belgrade independent media on Tuesday.