Democracy in Yugoslavia: Milosevic´s Final Defeat - Page 4
© Peter Weber
The dictator´s lingering influence has been felt in the days after Kostunica´s take over, when the Serbian government and parliament refused to resign in favor of new elections. The chief of Milosevic´s secret service, Rade Markovic, even refused to recognize Kostunica as president. President of Serbia is still Milan Milutinovic, one of Milosevic´s closest lieutenants, who is also indicted for war crimes in Kosovo. Not much better is the Serbian prime minister Mirko Marjanovic, who not only refused to resign, but even tried to get the police and secret service agents under his personal control. In the end Kostunica won this conflict, when the Socialist majority in the Serbian parliament bowed their heads to the wind of change, agreeing on new elections for 17th December.
Kostunica will be in need of a strong majority in order to win the enormous difficulties of his task. He has to rebuild the economy, reinforce democracy and reestablish international relations. As a law professor he should be aware that most institutions have been eroded from inside by cronyism, corruption, violence and fear. He has therefore to regenerate the people´s trust in the institutions. But first of all he has to keep his country together. Yet this battle could already be lost, since the two regions mostly terrorized by Milosevic´s regime, Montenegro and Kosovo, are both forcing their quest for independence.
In his first public appearances Kostunica has won a lot of sympathy all over the world, but not in the two regions belonging to the Federation The president of Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic, has already declared that his country does not recognize Yugoslavia´s new president, because the Montenegrin people did not participate in the vote. Indeed, only 25% of Montenegro´s voters turned out to support Milosevic´s Socialists and due to this fact Montenegro is now represented in the Yugoslav parliament only by supporters of the Federation, while in the region itself at least a third of the population seems to be favorable to independence.
During Milosevic´s repression in Kosovo and the NATO bombing Montenegro had already taken a neutral position. After the war the region was under heavy pressure from Belgrade, and many Western leaders were concerned that Milosevic might use the Yugoslav army to crack down on the rebellious Republic asking for independence, thus starting another bloodbath. As the first Balkan state gaining independence from the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century, Montenegro is a full republic of the Yugoslav Federation since 1918 and therefore has a legal right to leave the Union, just as any other of the republics of former Yugoslavia: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia. But without Montenegro Serbia would lose its only access to the sea and the Serbs will not easily renounce this.
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