Serbia Since 1989: Politics and Society under Milosevic and After

4. An Airplane with Eighteen Pilots: Serbia after Milosevic

4 AN AIRPLANE WITH EIGHTEEN PILOTS Serbia after Milosevi˜ OBRAD KESI– O n 12 March 2003 Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindji_ was assassinated in front of his government o‹ces. His death was both a tragedy for the people of Serbia, desperately wanting to live in a normal country, and a wake-up call for politicians in the country who had squandered opportunities in order to pursue narrow agendas of personalinterestsandopportunism .FollowingMilopevi_’sousterfrompower, Serbianpoliticshaddegeneratedintobitterbickeringbetweenthetwomain personalities of the victorious Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), Zoran Djindji_ and Vojislav Koptunica. Important public support for neededreformswassquanderedasthefeudingpoliticalpartieslurchedfrom scandaltoscandal.AsthedemocraticforcesinSerbiafragmentedandmany of the leading figures of the DOS became entangled in corruption and allegations of links to organized crime, reform stalled and Djindji_ and his allieswithintheDOS increasinglyconsolidatedpoweroutsidegovernment institutionsandwithinDjindji_’scabinetandtheDOS presidency.Vojislav Koptunica, who had headed the DOS’s successful election ticket, could not translate popularity and moral authority into eªective leadership and quickly found himself a figurehead and bystander. The DOS rode a roller coaster from crisis to crisis. At first, most of Serbia ’s citizens gave the DOS the benefit of the doubt, maintaining their patience while waiting for everyday life to improve, for a much longer time than most observers thought possible. However, by August 2002, it was clear, even to the most naïve follower of Serbian politics, that things had gone past the point of no return in the DOS internal conflict. Most of Serbia’s citizens either joined the ranks of the apathetic or accepted that their hopes for a complete and quick break with both the Milopevi_ past and the Yugoslav communist past would not be realized under the rule of the DOS. There are many reasons for the DOS’s success in toppling Milopevi_ and for its subsequent failure to provide eªective and stable leadership. Some of the reasons for the DOS’s failure are to be found in the nature of the coalition itself, and others can be found in the political baggage the Serbian opposition accumulated as it fought Milopevi_ for over a decade. All this came on top of the legacy Milopevi_ left behind—a dysfunctional state with disintegrating institutions ruled by one man, his family, and a quasi-mafia political elite—and proved to be too much for the DOS’s leaders to overcome. The relationship with the international community, especially with the United States, also had a negative impact on the DOS’s ability to govern and strengthened the forces that tore the DOS apart. Finally, one must also look closely at the political personalitieswithinSerbia —Koptunica,Djindji_,andothers,whosediªeringvisions, hubris, and desire for power have created the engine driving Serbia’s continuing chain of crises. Zoran Djindji_’s death not only shocked Serbia but also abruptly changed the political landscape and created a leadership void that will present Serbia with major challenges and possible instability for the foreseeable future. This chapter is an attempt to explain how the DOS fell apart and how Serbia has found itself in an extended period of crisis with little prospect of a quick solution. In order to try to understand where Serbia is going, one first needs to examine where it has been and focus especially on why the DOS has failed to transform Serbia into the stable democratic, and normal, state most of its citizens so desperately desire.1 Here I look at all of the factors that contributed to this failure and have organized my analysis into three major sections: “The Milopevi_ Era,” “The DOS in Charge,” and “The DOS’s Legacy to Serbia’s Future.” The Milopevi_ Era Much has been written about Slobodan Milopevi_, his rise to power, and how he ruled Serbia.2 Much less has been written about how the experiences of the Milopevi_ era aªected Serbia’s former opposition political parties and their leaders. The DOS’s inability to provide eªective and honest leadership is very much a part of Milopevi_’s legacy, and the lingering psychological and emotional wounds that were suªered during this period. The perceptions of Serbia’s political opposition, both in the country and abroad, were that it was weak, ineªective, egotistical, fragmented, and corrupt.3 Most of these characterizations were of course accurate, but they were rather superficial. There is much more to it. In spite of the major OBRAD KESI– 96 role Serbia’s opposition parties played in ending Milopevi_’s rule...