Saturday, Sep 6, 2008
The decisiveness of Kostunica's victory over Milosevic at the presidential polls is clouded by the fact that Milosevic's party scored a significant number of seats in the simultaneous parliamentary elections. Further restricting Kostunica's ability to establish a solid new democratic government is the fact that Montenegro's Socialist People's Party (SNP), which until days ago was loyal to Milosevic, now has the decisive swing vote in the parliament. The SNP is now being fiercely wooed by both Milosevic's Socialist parliamentarians, and Kostunica's opposition MPs.
The Yugoslav Parliament consists of two chambers, with a total of 178 seats. Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia and his wife's Yugoslav United Left together won 51 seats (44 seats in the lower house, the House of Peoples and 7 seats in the upper house, the Chamber of Republics); Kostunica's Democratic Opposition of Serbia has 69 seats (59 seats in the lower house and 10 seats in the upper house); while the Montenegrin SNP holds 47 seats (28 seats in the lower house and 19 seats in the upper house).
So while Serbia is convulsed with a sense of triumph at getting rid of Milosevic, Serbs still have to swallow the frustrating, retrograde situation of watching Kostunica coexist in a parliament still stacked with Milosevic cronies and proxies. It all fuels a nagging sense that Milosevic still has some tricks up his sleeve, and remains a hostile potential threat who -- through his proxies and loyalists in the Yugoslav and Serbian governments -- could very easily attempt to sabotage Serbia's attempted return to normalcy and democracy.
Indeed, opposition leaders say as late as Friday night Milosevic made a failed attempt to retake Radio Television Serbia, seized by opposition supporters a day earlier. After his attempt failed, he later appeared in a pre-taped television speech to the nation, in which he said that he conceded Kostunica's victory, and that he planned to take a short break to spend time with his grandchild, before resuming political life as the leader of Serbia's now-opposition Socialist party. His televised speech came hours after his hated son, Marko Milosevic, fled with his wife to Moscow under assumed names. A day earlier, anti-government demonstrators trashed "Scandal," a downtown Belgrade perfume store owned by Marko. Milosevic's son, who has been one of Serbia's largest, most ruthless and violent drug, cigarette and fuel smugglers, is a widely despised figure here. The looters, not content to just trash the store, went so far as to pull electric wires from its walls. They left graffitti that said "Complain to Daddy."
It is that kind of popular rage and anger which Kostunica must somehow manage and control. And he must do it at a moment when Serbia and Yugoslavia have a real crisis of governing authority.
Only days after he was involved in a historic struggle to inspire the conservative Serbian population to engage in an uprising to overthrow Milosevic, the new president now is faced with the delicate chalenge of carefully lowering people's massive expectations for positive transformation, quick changes and prosperity. At the same time, Kostunica, whose attraction as a candidate was partly based on his credentials as a man of integrity who never once met with Milosevic, now has to form a government that is stacked with Milosevic's associates.
But Kostunica enjoyed an international vote of confidence Sunday in the world currency markets. The Yugoslav dinar, which traded at 38 Deutsche marks Saturday, rose to a rate of 22 Deutsche marks on the streets of Belgrade Sunday.
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