No Solutions in View, Serbs Cling to Status Quo : Yugoslavia: War has made the economy a shambles. Yet there’s no stampede to opposition parties, most of which mirror present policies.

The banks collapsed months ago, robbing Serbs of $12 billion in savings, and paychecks are routinely late and the dinars they distribute increasingly worthless.

But even the mounting hardships of hyper-inflation, unemployment and shortages are proving too little to compel Serbia’s 9 million people to confront reality.

Despite tumbling living standards and soaring tensions from a war that has destroyed its prosperity, Serbia is apparently not yet suffering enough to prompt its citizens to arrest their slide.

Apathy and resistance to change are now the key forces keeping Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in power. After eight months of war with Croatia and dismemberment of the Yugoslav federation, few in Serbia see Milosevic’s reign as anything short of disaster.

Yet there has been no rush of support to opposition parties, most of which espouse nationalist policies that mirror those of Milosevic. Seeing no viable alternative to the current path to destruction, voters continue to cling to the status quo.

The lack of an opposition plan for rescuing Serbia from its economic chaos was probably the reason that so few of the republic’s disaffected voters turned out for a Monday demonstration against Milosevic and his Socialist Party.

The gathering at St. Sava’s Cathedral was hailed by the charismatic opposition leader, Vuk Draskovic, as the beginning of the end of ruinous rule. But only about 30,000 took part--fewer than supporters expected and far fewer than had participated in similar protests in the past. Many of those at Monday’s demonstration also came decked in combat regalia, flaunting support for the war that has been the bedrock of Milosevic’s power.

Draskovic, head of the anti-Communist Serbian Renewal Movement, and Democratic Party chief Dragolyub Micunovic have steadfastly avoided denouncing the war for fear of alienating nationalist voters. But by refusing to challenge Milosevic on the ground on which he is most vulnerable, the opposition has missed a chance to steer the state away from disaster.

“There is no magic solution for turning around a collapsing economy, so the opposition is still playing the nationalist card, which it has never been able to do as well as Milosevic,” a Western envoy said, explaining the Serbian president’s seemingly unshakable power.

The failure of any party or figure to instill hope for recovery amid the current hardship has left most people in Serbia feeling paralyzed.

“What difference does it make who leads the country?” complained Nikola Zukovic, an unemployed construction worker, rattling off the fate of other republics that have ostensibly ended Communist rule.

“We have (Milan) Kucan as president of Slovenia. He was a Communist for 20 years. We have Franjo Tudjman in Croatia, who was a Communist general and is still not a democrat. We have Kiro Gligorov in Macedonia, another big Communist from the Tito era. And we here in Serbia have Milosevic, the last Stalinist in Europe! Tell me,” Zukovic asked, “where are we supposed to get democracy?”

Although those other leaders have at least renounced their Communist ideology, Serbia and its last ally, tiny Montenegro, were the only Yugoslav republics to reelect Communist leaders in 1990 when multi-party elections were held in each of the six formerly allied states.

Anti-Communist sentiment has been growing as living standards decline in both republics, but people seem willing, even eager, to accept their leaders’ assurances that life will soon get better.

Milosevic last month declared the war against Croatia ended. He cast the conflict that bankrupted his republic as a victory. Now that U. N. troops are deploying to keep the peace in Croatia’s ethnic flash points, Serbia will be spared the staggering costs of supplying Yugoslav troops to protect the Serbian minority.

A perceived threat to Croatia’s 600,000 ethnic Serbs was the reason offered for the federal army’s aggression against Croatia after it declared independence in June.

Despite the illusion of victory and Milosevic’s claims of imminent economic reprieve, economists predict widespread social unrest in Serbia once its financial collapse becomes more apparent.

The question now puzzling Western observers is how Serbia has avoided social unrest over the winter, the first in decades that subjected Serbs to fuel shortages and unreliable wages.

Part of the answer is a stubborn reluctance by Serbs to admit second thoughts about their choice of Milosevic only 15 months ago, when a wide range of political alternatives were offered during republic elections.

Serbian residents rejected the more conciliatory approach to Croatian independence proposed by the Democratic Party and the anti-nationalist policies of former federal Prime Minister Ante Markovic. Markovic warned that war would destroy the economy that was teetering even then.

More influential factors in staving off disaster are Serbia’s self-sufficiency in food production and the large numbers of adult men working in Western Europe who send their hard-currency wages back home.