Will the Winners Tough It Out?

Last week’s stunning rejection by the Serbian people of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic marks a watershed in the country’s politics. Despite a distinctly “unfree and unfair” election, the unified Serbian opposition overwhelmingly defeated the conjugal coalition of Milosevic and his wife, Mirjana “Mira” Markovic, in both presidential and municipal races. But it is unclear, despite huge turnouts for street demonstrations, how much the Serbian people are prepared to risk to defend their formidable electoral gains.

Exhausted by war, corruption, destitution and international sanctions and opprobrium, the Serbian people came out in droves to embrace a little-known legal scholar and self-styled “democratic nationalist” politician, Vojislav Kostunica. An ardent Serb nationalist and strong critic of Western policy toward Yugoslavia, Kostunica talks of “reconciliation” rather than “revenge.” His refusal, should he become president, to turn the indicted Milosevic over to the United Nations-mandated International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has reportedly reassured a significant number of Yugoslav army and regime officials that they, too, may be protected from prosecution under a Kostunica-led government. His reputation as an incorruptible outsider also distinguishes him from better-known opposition leaders, all of whom have, at one time or another, betrayed their constituents by cutting deals with Milosevic.

Milosevic, however, has not been a good loser. He is determined to brazen it out in a second round of voting, calculating, perhaps, that if he can’t bribe, threaten or cheat his way to reelection, he might actually “win,” should Kostunica and his colleagues rest on their first-round victory and refuse to take part. Short of that, Milosevic may use the extra time to stage a provocation--a “terrorist” incident or a signal to his mustered paramilitary units in Montenegro to move against the democratically elected government there--to use as a pretext for declaring martial law. Or he may engineer a pseudo-constitutional arrangement that would effectively funnel all real power from Yugoslavia into the subsidiary republic of Serbia, where he may still be able to manufacture an electoral win sometime next spring. That would leave Kostunica and his victorious opposition forces presiding over an empty federal shell.

But these scenarios appear less and less likely. Even some Milosevic loyalists have acknowledged a partial opposition victory and called upon authorities to respect the citizens’ vote. Back-room negotiations are reportedly focused on declaring an opposition victory, with guarantees of a safe exit and haven for Milosevic, other key figures in his entourage and their accumulated fortunes. Belgrade is rife with rumors that some of them are already preparing to flee the country.

Opposition campaign manager Zoran Djindjic has called for a total work stoppage until Milosevic steps down, but he has also preached patience. During the campaign, Kostunica promised not to allow the situation to devolve into “civil war.” With many in the Yugoslav army reportedly having voted for Kostunica, and with the police, so far, exhibiting restraint, it’s not certain that Milosevic’s usually reliable agents of repression would be willing to follow orders from their “supreme commander” to enforce a fraudulent result.

If the popular will does ultimately prevail, it would be a truly Olympian triumph for the Serbian people, who could, at long last, dare to imagine a future free of fear, international isolation and relentless economic hardship. It would also be a vindication for Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic, whose breathtaking, consensus-defying decision both to boycott and to monitor the elections helped to de-legitimize the polls and to limit Milosevic’s opportunities for fraud. An acknowledged Milosevic defeat would, as well, be an immense relief to allied nations, whose commitment in recent years to seeding democratic change in Serbia has at last borne fruit. Finally, it should encourage Russia, China and other nations that have supported Milosevic to persuade the strongman to give up his power, as well as his office, and to set about building constructive relationships with his successors.

At such time--whether measured in days or months--as Milosevic finally concedes, or the last of his desperate maneuvers fails, Yugoslavia’s newly elected government should move quickly to differentiate itself from its predecessor by acting on its campaign commitments to democratic governance, economic reform, human rights and the rule of law. After a decade of Milosevic’s corrupting touch, the effort will be difficult and slow.

To clarify which territories will constitute the new Yugoslavia, Kostunica’s government should quickly annul all illegally enacted constitutional changes pertaining to Montenegro, begin withdrawing all but a token military presence there and open up discussions with its Montenegrin counterpart on the future relationship between the two republics. Moreover, it should call for early elections in the Serbian republic, where Milosevic and his cadres remain deeply entrenched. Not until the regime’s tentacles throughout Yugoslavia are cut off can the Serbian people hope to enjoy the freedoms implicit in their hard-won victory. As a start, the new government should release all political prisoners of the Milosevic era, including the nearly 1,000 illegally detained Kosovar Albanians who were surreptitiously moved into Serbian prisons at the end of the Kosovo war.

A new Yugoslav government would help stabilize the Balkans by categorically rejecting the use of force as a means of settling territorial disagreements. To show its good faith, Kostunica should comply fully with the international agreements and resolutions that ended the Bosnian and Kosovo wars, which include the inviolability of borders, the return of refugees and the turnover of war criminals. Toward the same end, the new government should also recognize and establish diplomatic relations with the independent states of Bosnia and Slovenia, agree to resolve its 10-year-old border dispute with Macedonia and apply for U.N. membership as a new nation, leaving to the courts all previous claims on the assets and entitlements once enjoyed by the former Yugoslavia.

If the Kostunica government is willing to take such steps, the international community should not hesitate to lift sanctions, offer massive and sustained amounts of financial and technical support and assist Serbia in preparing to participate in European and transatlantic institutions. Serbs’ long-desired identification and integration with European nations and values is their best hope of fulfilling the potential, so bravely demonstrated in Kostunica’s resounding electoral victory, to move beyond their recent, painful past. *