Yugoslav Party Joins Eastern Bloc Wave

The Communist Party will give up its monopoly on power and allow independent parties to compete in free elections next year, according to a draft declaration published today.

It also called for a new constitution that guarantees market-oriented economic reforms, respect for human rights and an independent judiciary.

Some opponents of change have maintained that independent parties would be formed along ethnic lines and further exacerbate ethnic tensions in the nation.

But the declaration, prepared for adoption at next month’s national party congress and published by the daily newspaper Borba, indicates that Yugoslavia wants to join the wave of democratic reforms sweeping Eastern Europe.

Until now, the Communist leadership of Serbia, the largest of Yugoslavia’s six republics, was a staunch opponent of Western-style democracy.

But at its regional congress today, Serbia’s Communist Party appeared to have softened its hard-line stance.

Bogdan Trifunovic, the republic’s party chief, said in a keynote address that Communists and Serbian authorities “have no reason or wish to administratively impede the establishment” of other political parties in the republic.

The second-largest republic of Croatia and the liberal northern state of Slovenia have already endorsed democratic reforms, and both are to hold free legislative elections in the spring.