POLITICS-YUGOSLAVIA: Serbia Rejects Milosevic

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Oct 6 2000 (IPS) - For Serbia and Belgrade, the end of this week brought with it the end of an era – the era of Slobodan Milosevic, who leaves power after more than 10 years of undisputed rule.

With almost 52 percent of the votes for Vojislav Kostunica, presidential candidate of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), Serbs had their say in the September 24 elections.

Milosevic seemed to be the only one who did not want to accept the fact.

“No more theft and blatant lies thrown into our faces” were the sentiments of the hundreds of thousands of Serbs who came to Belgrade on Thursday, after DOS invited them to the capital to protest against Milosevic’s refusal to accept the electoral results.

Serbs were enraged by numerous manouevres of the regime since September 24.

A series of rulings against results presented by DOS, made by the state – controlled Federal Electoral Commission (SIK) and Constitutional Court, turned the tide of rage against Milosevic.

DOS called on its supporters to participate in the first general strike ever in Serbia, that started successfully on Monday and lasted until the Thursday rally.

Milosevic additionally enraged the public with two sharp speeches, one last Saturday and one on last Monday. He described DOS and those who voted for Kostunica as “NATO mercenaries”, “mobsters”, “criminals”.

The opponents of the regime were also dubbed “hyenas”, “mad dogs” etc.

The combination of rejection of the electoral defeat by Milosevic and his rage against the better part of his nation, was too much, analysts say.

“The developments in Serbia, in the past two weeks, have a specifics of their own” Slobodan Samardzic of the Institute for European Studies told IPS.

“The final rage of people was caused by the fact that Milosevic lost the elections and would not admit it. It never happened in the countries of Eastern Europe that saw changes of their regimes since 1989.

“Since September 24, we did not see simple electoral manipulation. We saw that the man who pushed all the constitutional changes through the parliament become angry when he lost”.

On July 6, Milosevic controlled the federal parliament and voted for constitutional changes that introduced direct elections for the presidency.

All the electoral rules were designed in favour of Milosevic, aimed practically for his long time presidency of another two four- year mandates.

“Milosevic played badly with the electoral card he invented”, Samardzic says. “But, there will be no elections in Serbia with Milosevic any more”.

Putting part of the parliament on fire on Thursday and burning of the building of Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) by angry demonstrators marked the day that ended Milosevic’s rule, but it was by no chance.

The rally was held in front of the parliament and police started throwing tear gas at several demonstrators who tried to enter the building.

The rage of protesters turned to nearby RTS, less than 100 metres away.

RTS was the most notorious propaganda tool of Milosevic, that brainwashed Serbs for a decade. The police refrained from further intervention against the protesters.

“No way” a young police officer told the crowd in front of RTS, taking off his helmet. “There’s no way we would take action against our people”. All around, other policemen followed. People started crying, as police was often believed to be the Praetorian guard of Milosevic.

Except for the tear gas in front of the parliament, there were no police actions against protesters later in the day.

RTS information programmes on world conspiracies against freedom loving Serbs that are to create a new world order of resistance to the West, accompanied by endless repetition of vitriolic Milosevic’s speeches against his own people were unbearable since September 24.

“The misuse of RTS in favour of only one man was a deathblow to that man himself,” Zarko Korac, one of the leaders of DOS told IPS.

After the attack of protesters on RTS, it went off the air for several hours. At 21.30 in the evening, journalists who were sacked from RTS 10 years ago for their disagreement with Milosevic’s war policies, appeared on screens. Vojislav Kostunica, the elected president of Yugoslavia, gave his first interview to RTS only hours later.

“It’s time for peace, hard work and normal life now” he said. “That is a single wish that I saw in the eyes of so many people during my campaign”.

In the city hall of Belgrade, the new government of the capital was sworn in.

In the local elections for Belgrade held on September 24, DOS won a landslide victory with 105 out of 110 city assembly seats. At no time the result was disputed by Milosevic’s regime.

“This is only the recognition of votes given to us by the people of Belgrade” the new mayor Milan St. Protic told journalists in the early morning hours of Friday. “The big job is ahead of us – to return life to normal in all ways”.

The new federal assembly is due to be sworn in later in the day on Friday.

In the 138 member body, DOS has 59 mandates. The 30 MPs from Serbia’s sister republic of Montenegro are expected to come to Belgrade and take part in the ceremony of establishing a new federal parliament.

A set of smaller parties has seven MPs. It remains to be seen if 44 MPs of Milosevic’s Socialist party and his wife’s JUL party will show up.