In Serbia Town, Opposition Finds Victory--and Defeat

A bare nail and the faded shadow of a forgotten picture are all that decorate the wall over Miroslav Martic’s desk. After two months on the job as deputy mayor, he said, there has been no time to settle into his City Hall office.

“Everything here is still just as I found it,” he explained, enjoying for a moment the comfort of a chair. “My day begins at 7 a.m. and ends between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. I always knew there were problems in this city, but that they were so big--I couldn’t even guess.”

Martic, a sociologist with tousled gray hair and matching mustache, is among the new opposition leaders who came into their own in Serbia’s disputed November local elections. But unlike his counterparts in Belgrade, the capital, and other contested cities, he and his Zajedno, or Together, coalition did not have to wait almost three months for this nation’s ruling Socialist Party to concede defeat.

Zajedno has run Uzice since early December, placing the troubled industrial town among the first local governments in Serbia not controlled by Communists or their allies. But with just eight weeks of governing under their belts, local Zajedno leaders say the glory of conquest has already given way to a sober reality: Running an opposition-led city in a country dominated by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic is like banging your head against the wall.

“Sometimes I regret even taking this job because, if there are no larger changes in Serbia, I see no way out of our problems,” Martic said. “Our biggest fear is that we may even lose our support as the population grows less understanding of our predicament.”

The Serbian parliament’s decision Tuesday to formally recognize opposition victories in 14 cities, including Uzice, has Zajedno politicians throughout the country clamoring to right the wrongs of so many years of unchecked, absolute rule.

On Wednesday, in the Stari Grad district of Belgrade, confident Zajedno officials mockingly bade farewell to the Socialists by setting adrift a bright red pleasure boat on the Danube River and watching it float aimlessly toward the Black Sea.

“This is a symbolic goodbye to the Socialist government of Serbia,” said Nikola Joksimovic of the Democratic Party, one of the three parties in the Zajedno coalition that will assume control of Stari Grad.

But if the brief example of Uzice is any indication, new municipal authorities will soon discover their political inheritance is so meager that they cannot even guarantee the lights will go on without the consent of Milosevic’s ubiquitous Socialists.

Local sources of revenue are so scarce under Serbian law that Uzice’s former Socialist government could raise locally just half of the city’s $5-million operating budget last year. To make matters worse, independent Belgrade media have reported that Milosevic is considering more revenue restrictions to squeeze the opposition.

Unlike most utilities, electric power throughout Serbia is controlled centrally in Belgrade, meaning it remains in the Socialists’ hands even when local governments do not. Uzice residents who cannot afford to pay their utility bills have flocked to City Hall, hoping the new municipal government will give them a break.

Martic must consider such hardship cases. He blocks out Wednesdays to meet with desperate constituents, usually squeezing in 25 sessions. So far, however, he has been able to offer little more than a sympathetic ear. “Very often I am forced to beg the Socialist head of the electric company not to cut power to these people,” he said. “This place looks like a doctor’s waiting room, except that even in the most urgent cases I usually cannot help.”

The frustration goes beyond formal divisions of authority between state and local officials. Uzice’s government has found its hands tied even in areas where its jurisdiction is beyond dispute.

The region’s largest companies, including a state-run copper processing plant and an ammunition factory, are going broke. They have laid off thousands of workers and have stopped paying water and heating bills. But unlike its Socialist predecessor, the Zajedno government has no political leverage over the firms, which are packed with Socialist managers.

With debts mounting, Zajedno officials recently decided to take a stand and shut off utilities to the ammo plant. That not only meant struggling employees were suddenly out of work but it left the city’s main hospital--which is linked to the same supply lines--cold and dry. The action was suspended after just five hours.

The new city government has also periodically turned off utilities to residential buildings where large numbers of customers have fallen behind on their bills. But the collection efforts have been so meager that the Zajedno government was forced this week to negotiate a high-interest loan from a local bank--run by a Socialist--to buy coal. Without the loan, the entire city would have been without heat in less than a week.

“The city treasury is empty,” said Aleksandar Cirovic, a former restaurant owner who is among Uzice’s new legislators. “Without money, we can’t provide city services.”

Cirovic said the new Zajedno government hopes people will understand that the coalition’s transition from ruled to ruler will be bumpy. But the change has been difficult for almost everyone.

At a large anti-Milosevic rally this week of several trade unions, the crowd cheered when a labor leader suggested that members stop paying telephone and utility bills in civil disobedience. Cirovic, who addressed the same rally, found himself in the awkward position of discouraging the boycott, saying it would hurt local authorities more than Milosevic.

“People are just starting to realize what it means to have a multi-party system, but it is going to take time to really change,” Cirovic said.

But many in the sullen crowd of trade unionists said they are growing impatient--and increasingly desperate--with the city’s plight.

Uzice, once a jewel in the Communist-era Yugoslav federation--until 1991, the city of 80,000 was named Titovo Uzice, after Marshal Josip Broz Tito, and enjoyed the political and economic benefits of such a designation--has seen its major industries crippled by the federation’s breakup and the international economic sanctions imposed on Serbia, which, along with tiny Montenegro, composes the rump Yugoslavia.

Those who still have work in local factories earn a fraction of their 1990 salaries, while others hustle three or four jobs--or resort to black-market smuggling--to make ends meet. “The basic problem is that we don’t have work and can’t live on the symbolic salaries we are getting,” said Miodrag Stefanovic, a father of two and an idled ammunition factory worker. “People aren’t expecting miracles from the new city government, but we want something, and so far we haven’t seen any changes.”

Down the street at City Hall, Martic was staring down another crisis. More than 100 of the 150 employees of the city’s kindergartens were demanding that their Socialist director not be fired; Zajedno has replaced four of 15 city department heads, and there are plans to remove others.

To be frank, Martic said, the kindergarten chief is not a problem, but he may have to go anyway. The local Socialists have accused Zajedno of lacking competent managers, so the new government feels pressured to prove them wrong. A thorough housecleaning may mean good people lose jobs, but there may be no other way. “So much has happened these past two months and political tensions have reached such a level that rational views do not always prevail,” Martic said, shaking his head in disappointment.

The deputy mayor then excused himself for a meeting with the local Socialist Party chief, who had helped with some urgent electrical problems in town and had now come collecting his due. “He will probably ask that we stop our daily demonstrations,” Martic said. “It seems everything has its price.”