By Vesna Peric Zimonjic
BELGRADE, Jul 24 2002 (IPS)

Although the five year term of incumbent Serbian President Milan Milutinovic only expires at the end of the year, the ruling (Democratic Opposition of Serbia) DOS coalition has decided to call for early presidential elections on September 29.

Serbia, bigger sister of Montenegro in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), elected Milutinovic as president during the Slobodan Milosevic era in December 1997.

He is one of the four named with Milosevic in the international war crimes tribunal indictment for Kosovo in 1999 and is the only remaining one who has not yet been transferred to The Hague.

Milutinovic was considered a benign politician by DOS and when Milosevic was ousted from power in 2000 he was allowed to retain his post.

“But the times of strange co-habitation of the communist era president of Serbia and reform-oriented government had to come to an end,” analyst Vladimir Goati says. “The elections will be a kind of referendum for the pro-reform oriented administration.”

However, Milosevic’s Socialist Party have criticised the decision to hold early elections saying it is a “dictate from The Hague”. The reaction follows speculation that Milutinovic will be handed over to the International War Crimes Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Milosevic was transferred to The Hague in June last year, while two of the co-accused surrendered to the tribunal last May. A third, Milosevic’s police chief Vlajko Stojiljkovic, committed suicide in April to avoid transfer to the ICTY.

Even before last Thursday, when the election dates were announced called, two of the country’s most serious candidates had already expressed their desire to run in the race. They are the current FRY president Vojislav Kostunica, the DOS official who won the federal presidential elections in October 2000 and toppled Milosevic and Miroljub Labus, currently vice prime minister of the FRY government, the most prominent economic expert in the country.

“These are the first presidential elections to be held without the shadow of Milosevic,” analyst Dusan Pavlovic told IPS. “However, this does not mean that this is going to be a flawless race”.

The DOS coalition that toppled Milosevic from power in 2000 was made up of 18 parties. However, two big parties within DOS floated away since then, having different views on reforms. The party of President Kostunica, Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) became the main rival of Democratic Party (DS), to which Labus belongs. Kostunica and his party want slower pace of reforms, with a touch of nationalism that resembles Milosevic.

DOS prefers quick yet painful reforms in the society already exhausted by a decade of Milosevic rule and international isolation. They have little sympathies towards Serbian nationalism.

“There is a small manoeuvre space for both. Their differences are symbolic – in the views of Serbs Kostunica represents tradition and morality, while Labus means better economy,” says Dusan Pavlovic.

Recent opinion polls have revealed that both candidates have broad public support, with 27 and 24 percent respectively. None of the opinion polls show the fear among Serbs that was present in the Milosevic decade: fear of war or of internal skirmishes. However, they do show that Serbs want better life and economic improvement (51,1 percent), according to the survey conducted by Simri which is affiliated to Gallup International. “If the elections in 2000 (that toppled former regime) were a kind of referendum against Milosevic, the Serbian presidential elections will practically be a referendum for the pace of reforms in Serbia that were devastated by Milosevic’s rule,” analyst Srdjan Bogosavljevic said.

Serbia, once the most prosperous countries of Eastern Europe, became second poor country in Europe after Albania in the decade of Milosevic’s rule.

Excerpt: