Serbian tightrope - fraudulent December 1992 elections in Serbia

National Review, Feb 1, 1993 by Chandler Rosenberger

THE SERBS pride themselves on defying world opinion. 'We never bend," a street-corner huckster said, apologizing that sanctions had cut off his supply of American cigarettes, 'We never break?'

But the Serbian president, Slobodan Miloseric, has done them all one better. By stealing their December elections, he has thumbed his nose at his own people and at the world on their behalf. The man who made his career by shutting down Serbia's autonomous regions has created a Frankenstein's monstor, the Serbian Radical Party, to threaten even harsher actions from the sidelines: Serbia now rests on a razors edge between compromise and chaos. But when, at the end of January, its political parties try to form a government, it will still be Milosevic making the choice.

Although Milosevics challenger, the Serbian-American businessman Milan Panic, conceded defeat, the December 20 elections were blatantly rigged. After opposition members had helped count votes in the local polling stations, the Serbian government simply derailed the ballots on their way to Belgrade. Rather than allow the ballot papers to move on to district commissions, where more observers awaited them, the regime side-tracked them into "communal commissions," bastions of Milosevic's Socialist Party. The results that emerged gave Milosevic 56 per cent. Opposition estimates based on local counts had put him just under or around 50 per cent.

But the theft of the ballots was only the last and perhaps most subtle ploy in the Socialist theft of the vote. The favorable coverage Panic received in Belgrade papers and on the city's independent television was swamped by a flood of innuendo from stato television, the only nationwide medium. Pensions were not keeping up with inflation, state broadcastors alleged, because Panic had raided the coffers. He was a "traitor," both a CIA agent and a failure who could not convince his Western paymasters to lift sanctions.

As election day approached, Panic supporters fought a trench war against the electoral bureaucracy to get registered. Opposition activists regularly discovered they had died or moved, or that they lived in demolished buildings. A French observer from the CSCE (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe) estimated that more than one hundred thousand first-time voters had been left off the rolls.

The Socialists dismissed such accusations as sour grapes. The CSCE's complaints were just so much propaganda from "some powerful people in the New World Order." A Milosevic spokesman sneered when I mentioned the charges. "Decisions important for the destiny of Serbia will be made here in Serbia," he sniffed, "no matter what the world thinks."

The theft was effective. Panic is politically dead. So is Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic, who angered the Socialists by backing Panic and the opposition by later dropping him. That leaves Milosevic to choose between the opposition and the Radicals in forming a government.

The Socialists created the Radicals to be their puppets. While Panic only appeared on television doing one of his unintentional impressions of Mickey Mouse, the ultra-nationalists got enough air-time to earn 25 per cent of the vote. The Radicals became Serbia's second largest party by playing on Serb fears that the break-up of Yugoslavia was a prelude to the splintering of Serbia itself. Albanians have flooded into the Serbian cultural heartland of Kosovo and in June tried to declare their own state. Radical leader Vojislav Seselj advocates clearing out the Albanians, many of whom are illegal immigrants.

Milosevic needs the Radicals to distract the Serbs from impending economic doom. But even the Radicals' rhetoric may not be enough to keep Serbs happy with Milosevic.

But Milosevic wants the Radical rhetoric, not their politics. He is now trying to shed his reputation abroad as the "butcher of the Balkans," and the last thing he needs is a coalition partner famous for a private army bent on freelance "ethnic cleansing." And the more Seselj rants while outside the government, the better Milosevic looks inside it. Since the election Seselj has demanded Panic's execution. Milosevic would embrace the Radicals only if he cared more about the Bosnian Serbs than about his own control over Belgrade. He doesn't.

Thanks to Western sanctions, Yugoslavia's industrial production has fallen 21.4 per cent this year; exports are down 41 per cent. A further 1.2 million workers, or one-third of the current workforce, will be on welfare by the end of the year. Meanwhile, inflation is running at 13,000 per cent.

And the Radicals will always be there, of course, should the opposition or the West demand too much. Milosevic can probably just about afford to push the Bosnian Serbs to negotiations, since Serbs at home are sick of suffering for them. But he could not give up Kosovo, any more than England could Westminster Abbey. "This is the phenomenon of Balkan obstinance," said Alexandra Jankovic, a psychologist and leader of the opposition party, DEPOS. "We would get a completely paradoxical result. Even people who did not support the policies of Serbia would swing to the other side." Thanks to his masterly electoral fraud, Milosevic can still sway to suit the whims of a people who pride themselves on never bending.