By Vesna Peric Zimonjic
BELGRADE, Jun 2 2004 (IPS)

A “travelling circus” of 15 presidential candidates is doing its colourful rounds of Serbia with just days to go before polling June 13.

All the opinion polls say that only three candidates, the ultranationalist Tomislav Nikolic, the government candidate Dragan Marsicanin and the candidate of the Democratic Party Boris Tadic stand a real chance of obtaining a large number of votes.

But that has not stopped Jelisaveta Karadjordjevic, a Serbian princess who returned to the country only recently, Bogoljub Karic, one of the richest men in Serbia, and a bunch of others turning the serious business of electing a head of state into amusement for millions.

“I base my promises on 200 years of Serbian history,” princess Jelisaveta says in her campaign. “Our future is our past.” Her campaign aims to make Serbia “look like a decent country” and “more beautiful”.

The princess can barely speak Serbian.

The Karadjordjevic family founded modern Serbia 200 years ago but was banned from the country after communists took over at the end of World War II.

Bogoljub Karic, co-owner of a local mobile telephone network, a TV station and a private university, promises that his first move as head of state would be to ban the import of lettuce.

“The first step will be to stop importing 20 million euros (24 million dollars) worth of lettuce,” Karic has announced. “I’ll make Serbs plant it as they always have, and then export it.”

Other candidates who turn up before a few hundred curious people here and there make all kinds of other promises.

One of them promises to bring back more than two million Serbs who live abroad, another a re-examination of the communist past.

One promises legalisation of prostitution in order “to carry out the sexual revolution”, another promises to get rid of all homosexuals. “I’d like to kill them all,” says presidential candidate Marjan Risticevic.

“This is a travesty of politics,” psychology professor Zarko Trebjesanin told IPS. “The whole thing about so many candidates is the legacy of the Milosevic era, when the make-belief of democracy was created by having as many candidates as possible.”

Former president Slobodan Milosevic fell from power in 2000 after almost a decade in power. He won his elections easily; dozens of other candidates were let into the race mostly as decoration.

“Milosevic had to look like the only serious one,” Trebjesanin said.

But the law provided them all with abundant state funds for their campaigns, and the law was never changed.

Under those provisions, this year’s 15 candidates received 78,000 dollars each, a useful sum even for a princess in a country where the average monthly salary barely exceeds 250 dollars.

Many candidates from the 1990s remain in the public eye though they never won elections. They often give interviews how they started their own business with the funds provided for campaigning, or how they bought luxury houses in Belgrade.

One said the money helped him realise his dream – of opening a factory for brooms and brushes.

Some who never made it as candidates are protesting. The Society of Cake Dreamers is planning to appeal to the Supreme Court because their candidate was not included in the presidential race.

He could not submit the necessary 10,000 signatures for securing candidacy, but the society claims its rights have been seriously violated.

“The atmosphere is becoming disrespectful, it’s a circus that makes ordinary people disoriented,” sociology professor Zorica Tomic told IPS. “No one thinks about programmes, not even the candidates.”

Serbia has been without a president for years. The last, Milan Milutinovic who succeeded Milosevic, was extradited to the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) like Milosevic himself. Both stand accused of war crimes against non-Serbs in the wars of the 1990s.

For some years now the speaker of Parliament has been acting head of the Serbian state.

Ivica Dacic from Milosevic’s once ruling and now dying Socialist Party entered the race because “it was an obligation.” Dacic presents himself as the only candidate of the left in the elections.

Dragan Djordjevic wants about two million Serbs living abroad to return to rebuild a country devastated by years of isolation and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) bombing campaign in 1999. About 10,500 are believed to have said they will respond to his call.

The new conservative government that took over three months ago has given Serbs abroad the right to vote, appealing to their patriotism and hoping to attract their money.

“The situation surrounding the presidential elections illustrates the total collapse of all values in society,” says Ratko Bozovic, an expert in social psychology.

“Looking into the past replaces the failures of the present, criminals are treated like heroes,” he said. “That needs time to change. And Serbian politicians and marginal quasi-politicians are wasting our valuable time.”

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