In Focus

Serbia: Presidential Hopefuls Take Aim

As the Serbian presidential campaign gets under way, a nasty war of words breaks out among supporters of two leading contenders.

by TOL

24 May 2004

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The early May surrender of crime boss Milorad "Legija" Lukovic unleashed a wave of bad feeling among supporters of the two centrist candidates for president, with each throwing out accusations that the other knows more about the 2003 assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic than they are letting on.

The latest events have also shown that unproven accusations still make headlines and continue to be a staple of rhetoric among Serbian politicians.

A DIRTY LITTLE WAR

The most vicious infighting has occurred between the presidential candidates of the two strongest reform blocs--Dragan Marsicanin of the government coalition and Boris Tadic of the opposition Democratic Party--and the most likely to benefit is the candidate currently leading in the polls, Tomislav Nikolic, the populist leader of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS).

The charges and countercharges began flying within minutes of the announcement of Legija's surrender and culminated last week with a statement from Marsicanin's electoral headquarters accusing Tadic and former Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic of knowing who really killed Djindjic.

When Legija, the presumed mastermind behind Djindjic's murder, unexpectedly gave himself up to Serbian police on 2 May, officials of the ruling Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) immediately urged parties not to use his act as political fodder in the upcoming presidential campaign.

But only minutes later, a series of former Djindjic allies and ex-government officials, including former deputy prime ministers Cedomir Jovanovic and Zarko Korac, appeared on major television and radio stations to describe the surrender as more of a sign of weakness in the government than a triumph of right over wrong. The "atmosphere" created by the government of Vojislav Kostunica contributed to making Legija feel secure enough to turn himself in, some former Djindjic supporters said.

That was the outset of a dirty information war between the two sides, further fueled by the speculations of media and nongovernmental organizations.

BLAME ALL AROUND

Legija's surrender came on top of a recent series of allegations and accusations that place the official version of Djindjic's murder in doubt.

One involves the "third shot theory" put forward by Djindjic's longtime bodyguard Milan Verulovic. Not two shots, as the official indictment states, but three were fired at Djindjic and himself on 12 March 2003, Verulovic claimed. Other bodyguards who were present at the murder scene confirmed the statement.

Another story, told to a Croatian television audience as third-hand information by former Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic, is that Djindjic and Legija conspired to murder Verulovic as a pretext for a crackdown on organized crime, but that a foreign secret agent fired the third shot that took Djindjic's own life.

Svilanovic is a supporter of Tadic in the presidential campaign.

Svilanovic's appearance on Croatian television coincided with a 15 May attack on Djindjic's sister, who was slightly injured by unknown assailants.

Gordana Djindjic, who is living in southern Serbia with her family, had received anonymous threats days before warning her over Legija.

Even though she had previously refused police protection, the attack served as a launching pad for attacks by Tadic against Interior Minister Dragan Jocic and thus, indirectly, his opponent Marsicanin.

The Marsicanin camp counterattacked on 17 May with a long statement in which it accused Tadic and Zivkovic of knowing who killed Djindjic.

Reading out the statement, Marsicanin's campaign chief, Dejan Mihajlov, also accused the former regime of the Democratic Party of "sharing money and power with the mafia" and "knowing who was stealing and killing throughout Serbia."

Mihajlov refused to answer any questions following the reading, infuriating the media as well as those who were implicated in the statement.

Tadic called the statement "unscrupulous and shameless" and immediately called on Mihajlov to tell the police and the courts what he knows.

The answer came back only in the form of a vague promise that "the state institutions will do their job," which failed to calm the situation.

According to sources from the Democratic Party of Serbia, Kostunica neither saw nor approved the statement.

Even Marsicanin agreed that his party headquarters "had fallen into the trap of those responsible for the murder of Zoran Djindjic--talking about things that should be discussed in court."

ELECTIONEERING HEATS UP

Many observers felt that the damage had already been done, with both Marsicanin and Tadic suffering. This most recent verbal clash will likely have consequences on 13 June, when Serbian voters try again to elect a president after failing three times last year.

This time there is certain to be a winner after a probable second round between the two top vote winners in the 13 June first round, because the parliament elected earlier this year amended the electoral law to eliminate the requirement of a 50 percent turnout.

While Nikolic is leading the race with 30 percent of those surveyed favoring him and is practically assured of participating in the second round, Marsicanin and Tadic are neck and neck in second place.

According to the latest polls, taken before the most recent escalation of bad feeling between the two, Marsicanin had closed the gap to within one to two points behind Tadic's 20 percent showing.

Neither man can count on a victory against Nikolic without the support of the other's voters in the second round. Polls suggest that Tadic would lose by a few percentage points to Nikolic in the second round but that Marsicanin would beat the populist candidate.

"This is due to the fact that a larger number of Tadic's voters are likely to vote for Marsicanin in the second round than vice versa," said Jasna Milosevic of the polling agency Medium.

Legija's surrender deepened the gap in public opinion between those who believe in the official version of Djindjic's murder and those who "are beginning to doubt" this version, the weekly Nin commented.

Supporters of the former government of Djindjic and his successor, Zivkovic, tend toward the official version, while those favorable to the new authorities in Belgrade tend to doubt this explanation.

In 2003, during the state of emergency following Djindjic's murder, the authorities accused the then-opposition of inspiring the murder, clearly pointing to Kostunica and his allies, some of whom were jailed.

But almost a year later, those accusations have proven to be unfounded and the charges against the accused have been dropped.

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