Slobodan Milosevic's and Yugoslavia's uncertain future

With the ratification by the Belgrade Parliament of the draft Constitution amendment that introduces direct elections for parliament and presidency, Milosevic is seeing his chances grow for a fresh new mandate, while tension is set to rise between Serbia and Montenegro.

Until now, the Yugoslavian president was elected by Parliament for a single four-year term; Milosevic’s time in office expires in early 2001.

Under the new regulations, Serbia’s only sister republic in the federation no longer enjoys equal treatment in the upper house of parliament, given the scarcity of its representatives in the Belgrade forum. Montenegran officials say the amendments have been brought into effect without notice to them. “Equality” between the two republics ends after a long period of misunderstandings between the Belgrade and Podgorica governments, as the former denied Montenegran government and parliament representatives recognition in federal institutions. Therefore, Podgorica has gradually moved to set up its own foreign, economic and border policy, but it is still not powerful enough to openly declare independence. But having this power is not to say they will be able to ward off a potential attack by the Yugoslavian army. So the best policy president Milo Djukanovic could think of is to stick to economic and democratic methods and thus win more support from the West, which would provide all the help in case of a strife with Belgrade. With a balanced policy to avoid open battle, which would anyway be unequal, he hopes to find supporters among the former Yugoslavian republics, as well as in Tirana.

As to Milosevic’s shot at a new mandate, it is quite feasible, lacking joint action by the civil society and the opposition. Although his popularity dwindled during NATO bombing campaigns, the Yugoslavian president remains on top of voters’ preferences. Opinion polls broadcast by the Serbian press credit the president with 14%, while major opposition leaders such as Vuk Draskovic and Zoran Djindjic are down at 6% and 3%, respectively. The syndrome of schism has touched even the Church, an institution that should be expected to stay above worldly passions. Immediately after the end of the Kosovo war, ministers of the Orthodox Church readily divided into “pro” and “anti” Milosevic camps, and the populace, in a society increasingly tormented by poverty, sees itself deprived of the chance for spiritual salvation.

The lack of a viable alternative to the present political configuration in Belgrade and the prospect of Milosevic carrying on in power indeterminately (once a precedent of amendment is created) throws questions marks hovering over the future of the federation. Will the West stick to its isolation policy or will it try various avenues to strike a discrete connection with Belgrade? And, if the embargo continues, what’s going to happen to the Yugoslavian economy? And when will the opposition mature enough to offer, after years of dissent, a tangible alternative? And, not least, how will a new Washington administration take to the Yugoslavian issue?

On one hand, the powers that rule Belgrade will themselves wear down, as Milosevic’s Serb Socialist Party is already fostering potential successors to the main man.

A desolate picture of a society that for almost a year has been rampages by every kind of crisis: economic, political, a human crisis and a much deeper one, a spiritual crisis. In a country that often displayed an extraordinary prowess for struggle and for keeping to its values.