POLITICS-YUGOSLAVIA: Can Milosevic’s Socialists Survive?

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Analysis Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Nov 28 2000 (IPS) - The Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), headed by former Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic, held a special congress over the weekend, dedicated to the future role of the once longest ruling party in this part of Europe.

The SPS ruled uninterrupted for 55 years. From 1945 to 1990 period it was the Communist Party and but a name change in 1990 saw it being called a Socialist party.

Since 1990, its undisputed leader has been Slobodan Milosevic, who up until 1997 was also the president of Serbia, which with Montenegro forms Yugoslavia. From 1997 until nine weeks ago, Milosevic was president of Yugoslavia.

But in the September federal and presidential elections, both Milosevic and the SPS were ousted from office. This past weekend’s special congress was hastily convened to define the party’s strategy ahead of another set of polls, this time Serbian parliamentary elections on Dec. 23.

On the surface, there were no surprises at the congress. Milosevic was re-elected as head of the party by 85 percent of the 2,300 delegates, who officially represented a membership of 500,000.

Applause welcomed Milosevic’s sharp anti-Western speech. It was the co-operation of foreign intelligence services and opposition that toppled him, he said. He described as “cowards” dozens of top SPS officials who quit earlier this month and formed two separate, more ‘democratic’ parties.

The congress concluded that the party stands a “good chance of full recovery” from the September defeat and could secure an “electoral victory” next month.

Opinion polls in the past weeks have said that the SPS will gain between eight and 10 percent of the votes.

Analysts here agree that neither Milosevic nor his SPS will be able to regain their former stature in the country’s political life.

SPS official Ivica Dacic admits that the party had 700,000 members before the September polls, but has lost 200,000 since then.

“One can say that 11 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the classic communist regime has finally died here,” analyst Vladimir Goati told IPS. “Among the re-styled communists of the SPS, many barely understand that. Milosevic doesn’t comprehend that at all,” he added.

“It is not only the problem of losing power for the time being,” says Belgrade sociologist Slobodan Antonic. “It’s the problem of learning how to be the opposition. The SPS may have revolved around one man (Milosevic), but it is also a party with a strong infrastructure and huge financial resources,” he adds.

The party still controls all the property of the former Communist Party, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Moreover, the parallel “underground” structures which the SPS spent over a decade building up within the secret police, commerce and paramilitary groups should not be overlooked, Antonic explains. That came as a result of the party-state that has existed here since World War II, he says.

“Milosevic’s victory at the SPS congress is only temporary,” analyst Zeljko Cvijanovic told IPS. “With Milosevic as the head, the SPS’ influence can only dwindle further and it will be only a matter of time before its membership starts drifting away,” he adds.

In his opinion, the two parties formed by ex-SPS officials Zoran Lilic and Milorad Vucelic, can and probably will attract disappointed SPS members and sympathisers.

“Those parties do lack the wealth and infrastructure of the SPS, but they are not saddled with an indicted war criminal as their president,” says Cvijanovic. The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) indicted Milosevic and four of his aides for war crimes against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

New Yugoslav president Vojislav Kostunica is refusing to hand over Milosevic to the ICTY, saying that the former president should be tried here instead, “for all the crimes he committed against his own nation”.

For Borisav Jovic, one of the t officials who left the SPS, the party “is heading for catastrophe with Milosevic as its head”. According to Jovic, many members and top officials realised the historic and dramatic change that happened here in September and during the mass protests in October, but, Milosevic did not.

Those who claim to have seen Milosevic recently say the former strongman insists he never lost to Kostunica at the polls, but was forced out in an illegal and violent “street coup”. He has convinced himself that he stepped aside to spare the nation from bloodshed, some of his loyal associates confide, insisting on anonymity.

It is worth noting that no SPS official was willing to talk to journalists in private before the September elections, but are available for comments now, providing their identity remains hidden.

But, in the opinion of analyst Vladimir Goati, the situation here still remains uncertain where the final path to democracy is concerned.

“In reality, Milosevic did not lose the war. He only lost a battle. It is difficult to imagine that he and his party could recover and consolidate quickly, but they could slow down the process of transformation to a market economy and make it much more expensive in economic as well as social terms in the future. And that is the long-term effect of 55 years in power.”