While we are waiting for the
usual 100 days to expire and hear the first estimates
of the measures undertaken by the new government,
we may as well take a closer look at the situation
that Cvetkovic's cabinet inherited and see if
it the new government is capable of creating a
new social environment. Radovan Karadzic's arrest
and extradition to the Hague scored high points,
but if out government sees this step only as a
calculation to loosen up the loop around its neck,
we will not have much progress in signing the
EU Stabilization and Association Agreement. Only
with principled and swift delivery of other indictees,
especially Ratko Mladic, Serbia could finally
be able to mentally leave the war behind.
The main moment of truth for the government, however,
comes at another level: will Serbia be able to
modify within a specific period of time a multitude
of laws required for the road toward the EU accession?
How will it finally boost industrial production,
which has been devastatingly low for two decades?
Will it have much success in combating corruption,
mafia and illegalities in privatization? How can
it guarantee protection of citizens', minority
and labor rights and what are its plans in stopping
the expansion of the gap between the small number
of the rich and the rising number of the poor?
We should keep in mind that over the past eight
years, from 5 October 2000 till today, the Democratic
Party headed four governments or at least had
a majority in them - first Djindjic's government,
then Zivkovic's, Kostunica's (in which the Democratic
Party had 13 and the Democratic Party of Serbia
12 ministers) and finally this one, Cvetkovic's
government. These experiences have considerably
raised critical awareness of the citizens and
public patience with the government, after years
of hopes for improvement, has worn off. Regardless
of tragic tests, like Djindjic's murder, a party
cannot be in power so many times and still find
excuses for chances it missed - which Bozidar
Djelic did recently by accusing the opposition
for everything, even for delay in Schengen visa
facilitation agreement.
At this point, we reach the essence of our problems
- the current state of our institutions as the
expression of the sum of political wills and forces
needed to confidently achieve the changes. If
we start from the highest institution, the Serbian
president, we see a head of state that makes public
appearances almost every day, but usually at some
festive occasions, including folk stars events
he imposed. On the other hand, he keeps retreating
from open confrontation with nationalists that
thrust themselves upon him even more. What do
we remember of his latest moves? The tasteless
disruption of relations with neighbors when he
gave a public lecture to Croatia about the need
to fight against
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war criminals, as if
our officials were innocent on that account.
Or his charade appearance at Beijing Olympics
when he promoted arbitrarily the suspicious
three-finger salute as an important sign
of our national identity. Is Tadic going
to be creator of a new policy based on
the mandate entrusted to him, or is he
already becoming a problem himself?
If we move further on the scale of national
institutions, we reach the National Parliament,
which first postponed its session for
two weeks in July, and then for another
month on August 1, under a strange excuse
that they should wait until political
tensions
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were over. What kind of parliament eschews such
legitimate challenges? If the Parliament cannot,
who else will resolve the usual political tensions
in the society? Even Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic
was miffed once at the Parliament spending almost
the entire summer not working, with so much work
to do.
Of course, in this situation the government is
not innocent, including its prime minister and
the way he was selected. The public already knows
that Tadic chose Cvetkovic between several candidates
with the open intention to keep the government
on a tight leash. This considerably changed the
balance between the two executives and the government
lost some of its importance at the time of large
works ahead. But this is only one side of the
arbitrary rearrangement of jurisdiction of executives.
The second is the fact that the prime minister
was granted, for the first time in our history,
a "golden vote", which practically means
the chance to put his decisive vote behind a proposal
when ministerial votes within the government are
divided equally. This has strengthened the prime
minister's position, but weakened the government,
which should build trust on its strength and lasting
homogeneity, and not on a single voice - which
seems to be a rather serious defect in the system
of our government.
A special story is the deputy prime minister,
another novelty in Serbia. Can Ivica Dacic, who
is also the minister of interior, go peacefully
on official visits to neighboring states, former
Yugoslav republics, and expect to be received
in good faith, when it was his Socialist Party
of Serbia that waged wars against their independence?
The ominous augury of similar unpleasant events
may be the recent meeting of Socialist International
in Athens, when representatives of these independent
states all voted against the SPS joining the organization.
The composition of the government provokes skepticism.
The ministerial biographies reveal interesting
facts: all ministers are university graduates,
but most of them did not receive affirmation in
their line of business. Their main recommendation
was their political career in their parties. They
are only "passing personalities", of
unverified integrity, little known to the public,
not much convincing to their partners, and a "disposable
good" for their parties, which can remove
them from their offices at any moment. The government
seems to be assembled from scraps, rather than
properly formed on the basis of mature criteria
and persons of proven qualities. But this is nothing
new.
If we add the opposition to our review of the
current situation in our top institutions, the
degradedness of our political life becomes glaringly
obvious. The behavior of the Serbian Radical Party,
Democratic Party of Serbia and New Serbia was
wrongly named obstruction - it is a deliberate
attempt to use all means to undermine work of
both the parliament and the government. This reveals
the fact that neither the populist nor the radicals
have an alternative program, apart from hard-line
nationalist ideology and violent intentions. Hence
all the feuds within the parties - which are more
than passing differences, but it may be too early
to tell whether they are a beginning of more significant
internal divisions. It has become a custom in
Serbia at this time of the year to forecast "a
hot autumn". If the forecast is right this
time, some of the big parties will feel the heat.
