Syndicate: About Coalition Vojvodina

["Mihajlo Acimovic" <mihajlo@angelfire.com>]

Friends, here is another one on the social acters in Yugoslavia. The reason why I'm sending all this stuff is to give you a deeper insight in what's going on and who the people on the news are.

Mihajlo Acimovic

ABOUT THE "COALITION VOJVODINA"

The Coalition Vojvodina is an ellection alliance, which was formed in 1996., by the major pro-autonomy parties in the Vojvodina region, Serbia, .yu.
It's big members are the League of Socialdemocrats of Vojvodina(LSV), the Reformist Democratic Party of Vojvodina(RDSV) and the People's Peasant Party. It has managed to enter the federal parliament in the 1996. elections and has won an overwhelmingly high number of votes at local elections the same year. Still, it could not establish it's own majority in any of the municipalities in Vojvodina. instead, it has made broad coalitions whith the Zajedno coalition and other parties (Democratic Party of Serbia, Civic forum of Subotica, some hungarian parties) that still rule most of the urban municipal governments in Vojvodina.
 The Vojvodina coalition has profited greatly from participating in the fraud which the government called elections in 1997.
The main reason for this increase in votes was the boycot of some (then parliamentary) oposition parties like the Democratic Party and the Civic Alliance of Serbia. still, it got 4 MP's in the Parliament of Serbia and almost another 4. the reason for the low number of MP's was the disastrous election law, that had hacked up regions whith one reason alone - to get Milosevic's parties a victory. 
After winning the mandates whithin the Serbian Parliament, the coalition had broken up. The main reason was because the leader of the People's Peasant Party, Dragan Veselinov, who was in charge of the legal procedures had registered it as a 4-member coalition, which was realised by the other coalition members only after the elections. The general pre-election agreement was that in such a case, either the LSV (League of Socialdemocrats of Vojvodina) would get the 4th place as the biggest or that it would be given to the top bearer of the list in that region. Now, Veselinov demanded that the fourth coalition member, a party nobody had ever heard of before, gets a seat.
This led to a series of mutual accusations before the media, and members of Veselinov's party had locked the coalition offices in at least 2 cities, not allowing the members of the other 2 parties to enter. There was even a legal proceedings over who has the right to bare the name Vojvodina. Resulting, many people had left all the 3 parties, and especially the Veselinov's. I am refering to it as Veselinov's to give you an idea of who is in charge there. 
An unsatisfied group of members of the RDSV had publicly left his party and joined the Democratic Center, a small party led by Dragoslav Micunovic, former president of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Center was a member of the Zajedno Coalition and is a member of the Alliance for Change.
The League of Socialdemocrats Vojvodina (LSV) and the Reformist Democratic Party of Vojvodina (RDSV)have since been known under the name of the Vojvodina coalition in most opposition media. Their popularity has obviously recovered from their slander campaign vs. Veselinov, thanx to Milosevic's mismanagement of the country and the spreading of pro-autonomy ideas by some civic groups. Now, more than ever before, many people in Vojvodina believe that Vojvodina's political independence would be the only way to escape Milosevic's economic destruction of the country. This goes well whith LSV's policy, proclaimed in '98 by it's president (or boss?), Nenad Canak, that Vojvodina must be given at least the status of a republic whithin the Yugoslav federation. The LSV have been running a highly aggressive local-shovinist propaganda over the past years, trying to oppose the state-induced Serbian nationalism, by a new, multiethnic, but equally agressive Vojvodinian nationalism (or local sh!
ovinism). This concept, although generally opposed by most of the population, has gained favor whith those hoping to escape Milosevic's rule through an increased autonomy or independence from Serbia. Also, the shovinist propaganda is starting to give fruits, resulting in increasement of young followers, who are generaly uninformed about life in Serbia, excpet Belgrade and believe that all of Serbia looks like Belgrade (salaries small but come on time, while in Vojvodina, they are miserable, on those rare occasions when they do come). The thruth, Serbia is as empovered as Vojvodina. Belgrade is better because it's the financial and political center of the country.
On the other hand, the RDSV, whith it's leader Predrag Filipov, has stood on a less agressive and less buisinesslike position, accepting renegades from "civic" parties like the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Serbia. It has support only in some cities and very little in villages. It wouldn't stand an election chance whithout participating in a coalition. The result is simple - it has been damaged more in the verbal war whith Veselinov and has every potential to become just a tag for the growing populism of the LSV. 

by Mihajlo Acimovic
macim@angelfire.com, mihajlo@angelfire.com
http://www.angelfire.com/nv/mihajlo



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