Watch Out for Milosevic in Upcoming Serbian Elections

There is a new twist to the adage “speak softly and carry a big stick” in the U.S. State Department’s approach to Serbia: “Speak tough and promise a big carrot.” This is a radical change indeed from President Clinton’s “not a cent of aid while Slobodan Milosevic reigns” to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s “assistance after free elections.”

The announcement of the new policy was made last week in Washington in the presence of eight Serbian opposition politicians who all are demanding early elections. The next day, Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic attacked the delegation, which was visiting Washington: “The traveling circus is not in our land. They went to pick up their payment from the NATO boss, to get new instructions, and probably to be criticized for having failed in their traitor’s duties.”

Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Vojislav Seselj dismissed the prospect of elections: “Albright wants only these elections in which her bootlickers will win.”

And if Milosevic accepts the idea of calling elections, then what? On Tuesday, the Serbian parliament agreed to put early elections on its agenda, so he already made a step in that direction. And, sure, there are additional conditions that the opposition wants him to meet, such as reform of the media and election laws, but he may fudge those.

It should be clear that if Milosevic calls early elections, it is because he believes that he can win them. After she announced the new policy, Albright was repeatedly asked: “What if Milosevic wins?” Three times she half-answered by saying that surely “the people of Serbia . . . will choose correctly” and that she finds it “really, really, really hard to believe that Milosevic might win a free and fair election.” Therefore, one is left to conclude, the question was hypothetical.

Yet the fourth time the what-if-he-wins question came, she said: “If my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a bicycle,” and she ended the meeting. However, although the chances of Milosevic being a winner may be small, the chances of Milosevic declaring himself a winner are very high. The devil is in the certification. That is, deciding how free and fair were the elections.

The onus will be on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which will have to muster all its capacities to accomplish a very efficient and impeccable monitoring performance. This is no small deal if one looks at the record. In the past, the OSCE has certified as “free and fair” elections that were remote-controlled by Milosevic and were neither free nor fair (the first post-war Bosnian elections, for instance).

In all its dealings with Serbia, the OSCE is under pressure from two of its members, Russia and Belarus, which have behaved in the past more like friends of Milosevic than like friends of democracy. (Additional pressure, from within the United Nations Security Council, comes from China.)

There also are serious logistics problems: The electoral calendar in the Balkans is very heavy, and the OSCE will have to stretch its already scarce resources to provide supervisors, observers and training for local staff, especially if Belgrade were to give a surprise green light and fast-forward the process.

The OSCE may find it difficult to turn down an offer to monitor elections, but it should not accept a task it cannot carry out. Most important, Milosevic is a tough opponent. He is known as a maestro in state propaganda, a virtuoso in molding public opinion and a wizard in controlling the minds of his people. Because of the war crimes indictment hanging over him and his close collaborators, he will not hesitate before using any trick, and he has a whole range of those.

It is instructive to remember how Milosevic handled the issue of OSCE observers last time around. In April 1998, he staged a national referendum that resulted in more than 90% saying “no” to foreign monitors. Four months later, he performed a volte-face, agreeing to have “verifiers,” only to prevent them from approaching areas they were supposed to verify. Then in January of this year, he declared the head of the verifiers persona non grata. This behavior deserves a PhD in political manipulation.

If Milosevic were to accept the idea of an early vote, he would be in fact defying his adversaries. The Serbian opposition will have to overcome its divisions, close ranks and organize a good electoral campaign and disciplined balloting; the OSCE will have to make sure that it can properly monitor the entire process, and the West will have to resist eventual pressures from Serbian government backers to certify anything but a clean vote.