Transparent and accountable governance on the North West Frontier

January 4, 2010 at 11:49 pm (Balkans, Catholicism, Culchies, Fianna Fáil, Ireland)

From the Donegal Democrat, a lovely little tale of how politics works in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas:

Labour Cllr. Frank McBrearty Jr said that Donegal Mayor, Fianna Fáil Cllr. Brendan Byrne, has broken the trust in the council chamber by allowing a quorum of 10 Fianna Fáil councillors to adopt the 2010 budget while the remaining 19 were in a meeting down the hall.

He said that as mayor, or chairperson of the council, Mayor Byrne should remain impartial. “I would describe now Brendan Byrne the same as (former Ceann Comhairle] John O’Donohue – there’s not much of a difference between both of them,” he said.

“I should have had more sense with everything I learned over 14 years,” Cllr. McBrearty said. But he said he had given his faith to the mayor. “He took that faith from me anyway.”

The Labour councillor said he believed the mayor had a responsibility to notify the remaining councillors – who were discussing proposals for funding a cut in commercial rates – that the meeting had reconvened.

“There is no honour in what he did and he has to live with it,” Cllr. McBrearty said.

This was Cllr. McBrearty’s first budget meeting and he said he was led to believe meetings would be adjourned and reconvened several times to allow for negotiations among parties, as they had been in the past.

“Dirty tricks politics is what it is,” Cllr. McBrearty said. He said the move will affect the way he sees the chair.

“He has left no trust within the chamber,” he said. “Every time we go to the toilet or go out for a bit of fresh air we have to be watching our back in case the mayor tries to pass something without us. I wouldn’t trust him now as far as I could throw him.”

Steady on, Frank! Now, what do the Shinners have to say about this?

The Sinn Féin group on Donegal County Council are disgusted and outraged at the actions of the Fianna Fáil group of ten councillors, in passing this year’s Donegal County Council budget in the absence of the other 19 elected members. Their actions are an affront to democracy in the county.

As representatives of a political party that has presided over the economic calamity that the people of Donegal and the Irish state are enduring, we would have expected that Fianna Fáil councillors, of all the elected members, would have been most sensitive to the need to listen to the voice of others in arriving at a budget for 2010.

Next year, Donegal County Council will have half the budget they had in 2007, dropping from over 440 million euro then to 220 million euro now. This is having a profound impact on the services provided by the council to the people of Donegal. Furthermore, the council has lost a quarter of its workforce in the last year, a loss of 300 jobs.

This year, as is always the case, the Sinn Féin group went through the County Manager’s draft budget book in great detail. While the Manager had committed to reducing commercial rates as requested by all the elected members, Sinn Féin, like others, sought to reduce them further than the 3% cut suggested. At the budget meeting, we made the following proposals:
· Cut the member’s conference expenses from €5,000 per councillor down to €1,500 per councillor. Saving = €101,500.
· Cut overseas travel budget from €30,000 down to €10,000. Saving = €20,000.
· Cut members public lighting from €92,800 down to zero as the scheme has not functioned in recent years. Saving = €92,800.
· Increase the target for second home levy collection from 2.5 million euro to 3 million euro. Additional income = €500,000.

This would have resulted in a further 3% cut in the commercial rate to that agreed by Fianna Fáil. With our proposals, commercial rates would have been reduced by at least 6%. We also proposed the following to assist the council in generating extra revenue to the council for investment in the development of the county.

· Deliver on targeted savings from new procurement and purchasing system. Potential additional income = 2.4 to 2.8 million euro.
· Seek compensation for, or recovery of, exceptional pension costs due to Government policy on early retirement from Department of Finance. Potential additional income = 1 to 2 million euro.

After the presentations by council management and initial statements from the various political groupings on the council, we broke for lunch and it was agreed that we would reconvene the meeting and immediately adjourn to allow for discussions between the parties/ groupings.

Fianna Fáil chose to meet amongst themselves and the Sinn Féin group took up an invitation from the Fine Gael group to discuss their proposals.

As that meeting was constructive and some common ground was being found, we invited the Labour and Independent councillors to join us in the understanding that the Fianna Fáil group were still involved in their own meeting. Again, the extended group of 19 councillors were engaging on a constructive basis when we were interrupted to learn that the ten Fianna Fáil councillors had passed the budget in our absence on the technicality that a quorum of seven councillors is all that is required.

While we were working together with others in the best interests of the county, Fianna Fáil were pulling a stroke. However, they are only fooling themselves. The days of Fianna Fáil running this county on their own are over whether they realise that or not.

Over the Christmas period, the four Sinn Féin county councillors will be meeting with senior party members in the county to discuss our next steps. Serious questions will be put to the Fianna Fail group and in particular, Mayor Brendan Byrne on how they thought this could be justified. Clearly, Fianna Fáil are going to have to demonstrate that they are willing to work with others in mutual respect and undo the damage done by their outrageous actions.

They should not take ongoing Sinn Féin involvement in, and support for, the technical agreement over Mayors, Deputy Mayors, and some committee positions for granted. Sinn Féin’s priority on council is to represent those who voted for us, taking our rightful place at the table of collective decision making. We sought all inclusive powers sharing on the council after this years council elections and only entered into the technical agreement with Fianna Fáil, Labour, and Independent councillor Seamus O’ Domhnaill after we learned that Fine Gael were intent on keeping us out of the senior positions on council our numbers entitled us to. Following the exclusion of our party from virtually all council positions after the 2004 election, we were not going to meekly allow that to happen again. Our agreement does not extend beyond council positions. It is not a political pact. Indeed, Sinn Féin have led the fight in this county and on council against Government cutbacks and policy, delivering over 100, 000 leaflets in recent months.

At all times, Sinn Féin councillors will defend the rights of those who support us. Fianna Fáil attempted to deny those rights at the budget meeting. They will not succeed.

Sounds like par for the course from the Soldiers of Fortune. More at The Story, where it’s noted that Donegal County Council has one of the worst reputations for transparency of any public body in the state. From what I know of the political warlord clans in that neck of the woods, somehow it doesn’t surprise me.

Catholicism news: If you think Donegal is a rum place, try on Herzegovina for size. Many Irish people of course regularly visit there on pilgrimages to the Marian shrine in the village of Medjugorje. By the way, the apparations of Our Lady at Medjugorje are not officially recognised by the Church, which is sort of the point of this story.

As you may have heard, some little time back the Holy See introduced tough new guidelines for the certification of miracles and apparitions, which involved visionaries being questioned by psychiatrists who – and I love this – may be either Catholics or atheists. (Shades of the Chinese Communist Party deciding who’s going to be the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama.) Rome has, up until now, been studiously neutral, tending to the sceptical, on the Medjugorje phenomenon.

A contributory factor is that local Catholic hierarchies, imbued with a deep distrust of lay visionaries, tend to look askance at that sort of thing. See, for example, the reaction of the Limerick clergy to local culchies worshipping tree stumps. As far as Medjugorje goes, Bishop Ratko Perić of Mostar and Duvno takes an especially dusty view, as did his diocesan predecessor the late Dr Pavao Žanić, influenced perhaps by Medjugorje being something of a political bone of contention between rival Bosnian Croat factions.

Now, after what happened to the late Archduke Franz Ferdinand, you might think Austrian dignitaries would think twice about venturing into that part of the world. But you’d have reckoned without Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna and big wheel in the CDF, who’s just been on a visit to the shrine. Schönborn stresses in his public statement that his visit was merely private and should not be taken as an indication of Vatican approval of the Medjugorje phenomenon. Nonetheless, the optics are all. The Medjugorje entrepreneurs are understandably cock-a-hoop; the estimable Bishop Perić less so.

Rud eile: A quite excellent article on Yemen from Richard.

6 Comments

The Thai revolution is not taking place

November 26, 2008 at 5:34 pm (Balkans, Thailand)

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You know, I looked at the events in Thailand and I thought of Ukraine.

I’m thinking in particular of Andrew Wilson’s book Virtual Politics, which is an interesting overview of the concept of managed democracy in the post-Soviet states and well worth a look if only to get clued up on the sort of skulduggery that goes on out there. Wilson, who’s a Ukrainian expert, is very sharp at telling the difference between what is and what seems, in particular the existence of political parties that exist merely as Kremlin sock puppets or as fronts for particular groups of oligarchs. He knows his stuff and gives you plenty of useful facts.

But there’s quite a striking mote and beam alert here. Although Wilson is good as far as he goes – that is, he’s good at assailing Putin and Lukashenka – he’s an outspoken enthusiast for colour revolutions, which are a virtuality unto themselves. He also tends to allow rather too much slack to politicians who’ll strike a pose as “pro-Western”, a group that includes a rather high proportion of spivs hoping that the Empire will help them into power.

The template, I suppose, is the October 2000 coup in Serbia, an event that could have slotted neatly into Baudrillard’s The Gulf War Did Not Take Place. At street level, yeah, you had popular discontent. As I can testify from personal experience, the Serbian populace is almost certainly the most boisterous and unruly in the region when confronted with official abuse of power, which by itself should give the lie to the racist stereotypes still bandied about on the Anglo-American liberal left. That’s your raw material, because you can’t have a colour revolution without a stage army, and it’s what convinced people who should have known better that the Oktobarska Evolucija was a genuine revolutionary upsurge.

But it’s when we depart from the street level to the level of high politics that we get Baudrillardian. In essence, you’re talking about a pseudo-revolution where the pseudo-socialists were ousted by pseudo-democrats. One clue should have been the swift sidelining of the more bolshy and unpredictable types like Vojislav Koštunica or Velja Ilić in favour of retreads from the old Serbian League of Communists now resident (and dominant) in the Democratic Party. To be more precise, the conservative Stalinist faction who’d been defeated in 1987 by Milošević’s perestroika faction, and who in the meantime had ditched whatever socialism they once had, indeed had no programme except for normalnost defined in Euro-Atlantic terms, but still had quite a broad Stalinist streak. The neo-Jacobin dictatorship instituted after the Djindjić assassination, with the full approval of Brussels and Washington, demonstrated vividly the limits of colour revolution democracy.

And so it has played out as the brand has been exported, complete with identikit democratic media, identikit human rights NGOs, identikit revolutionary youth movements and the same subbing from the NED, the Soros foundation and the various EU slush funds. In Ukraine you have state power being contested by different subsets of corrupt oligarchs, with the “pro-Western” or “pro-Russian” labels functioning as brands to attract the broad masses. In Georgia the hapless Shevy makes way for the disastrous Saakashvili. Even if we leave out the geopolitics – and in the last analysis it’s all about the geopolitics – the punters don’t seem to gain very much from a process that’s supposed to be for their benefit.

That’s why Thailand is so refreshing. You know the way, when the Tories used to cut benefits, they’d be hard-nosed and say it was all for the good of business? What really winds me up about New Labour is that James Purnell will assault the poor and then claim it’s for their own good. And what you have in Thailand is not some popular happening designed to have the Grauniad left in raptures, but an explicitly anti-democratic colour revolution. You have the well-heeled sectors of Bangkok society attempting to bring down a government that’s too responsive to the demands of the plebs, and restore the country’s traditional monarchy-and-military order of power. Basically, Bangkok’s answer to the Countryside Alliance.

There are a lot of people knocking around academia and the high end of the punditocracy who’ve made a lot out of democracy promotion since Berlin. I’d love to hear what they make of this, if they can tear themselves away from agitating for regime change in Venezuela.

Rud eile: I notice Brussels is once again treating Bulgaria as a coconut colony. Sergei, my man, when will you learn that the only way to go is to be as combative as the Czechs? Old Václav Klaus wouldn’t have let himself get into this humiliating position.

8 Comments

The missing episode of Minder

October 23, 2008 at 8:07 pm (Balkans, Stalinism)

Wherein Arthur travels to Albania, and so impresses the natives with his wheeler-dealer wiles, and his promise of a varmint in every pot, that they proclaim him dictator. Guest starring Brian Glover as the late Nikita Khrushchev and Robbie Coltrane as Franz-Josef Strauss, with a special appearance by Norman Wisdom as himself.

14 Comments

Додик: Сарајево кључа од жеље за осветом

July 27, 2008 at 2:14 pm (Balkans)

Бошњачка политичка елита настоји од Бошњака да направи једине жртве рата у БиХ и да тиме стекну право на освету, мржњу… и да траже све што им падне на памет, каже премијер Републике Српске Милорад Додик

Чим је објављено да је у Београду ухапшен бивши председник Републике Српске и хашки оптуженик др Радован Караџић, бујица претњи бошњачке политичке елите слила се на Републику Српску. Члан Председништва БиХ Харис Силајџић одмах је рекао да „треба ухапсити и Републику Српску” и да „нема правде док она постоји”. О овим и другим питањима у вези с Републиком Српском и Босном и Херцеговином разговарали смо с републичким премијером Милорадом Додиком.

Како тумачите последње нападе бошњачких политичара на Републику Српску?

Основни концепт бошњачке политичке елите је да, у очима света, од Бошњака направи једине жртве рата у Босни и Херцеговини. А када стекнете ореол жртве, онда имате право на све. Значи, имате право на освету, на грешку, право да мрзите, да тражите све што вам падне на памет. Не спорим да је у рату погинуло највише Бошњака. Али, гинули су и Хрвати, а страдао је и значајан број Срба. Због тога је немогуће правити жртву само од једног народа. Србе и Хрвате нису побиле хуманитарне организације него поборници бошњачке идеологије која је и сада на сарајевској политичкој сцени. Та идеологија заговара да све што јесте и што личи на Републику Српску истог тренутка треба осудити на нестанак.

Има ли идеологија о којој говорите реално упориште?

Нема. Република Српска је верификована Дејтонским споразумом, који је међународни уговор. Садашњост и будућност Републике Српске је у рукама свих њених грађана – Срба, Бошњака, Хрвата и осталих. О судбини Републике Српске неће одлучивати Харис Силајџић, Сулејман Тихић, Златко Лагумџија и слични који као инсистирају на некој правди, а у суштини само траже обрачун са Републиком Српском и освету. Сарајево напросто кључа од жеље за осветом. Можда је зато добро што је овде међународна заједница да то спречи. Али, та жеља за осветом је довела до нефункционисања земље, и лако је може одвести у коначан распад.

Реалност је да Федерација БиХ никад и није профункционисала. Слично је и са заједничким органима БиХ. Једино Република Српска функционише и има све капацитете за самосталан ход у будућност. Помало још делује и међународна заједница. Оно што Силајџић и остали нападају је могућност Републике Српске да самостално иде у будућност. У Бањалуци је данас власт која каже: „Ми имамо права која су нам дата у Дејтону и ми ништа друго не тражимо. Свако друго решење није само сукоб с нама него и са Дејтоном”. То што се њима не свиђа наш став, њихов је а не наш проблем.

Теза да ће хапшење Караџића и Младића довести до смиривања тензија и помирења у БиХ, показала се потпуно нетачном. Због чега су догађаји кренули супротним смером од очекиваног?

Делимично сам већ одговорио на ово питање. Ипак, подсетићу да сарајевски политички круг користи сваку прилику и сваки повод да прошлост искористи за обрачун са Републиком Српском и српским народом. Због тога је и Караџићево хапшење изазвало подизање политичких тензија. Иако није осуђен, Караџића су бошњачки политичари и медији већ прогласили „босанским Осамом бин Ладеном”, „крвником са Дурмитора”… Шта ако он буде ослобођен? Неко ће рећи да је то немогуће. Зашто би било немогуће када су ослобођени, рецимо, Рамуш Харадинај и Насер Орић? Зна се да је Караџић пристао на Лисабонски споразум и да је од нас посланика тражио да га подржимо. Прихватио га је и Алија Изетбеговић, а затим га је одбацио. То је, тврди творац споразума Жозе Кутиљеро, дефинитивно одвело БиХ у рат.

Како објашњавате да Караџићево хапшење није изазвало ниједан изгред у Републици Српској?

То је резултат наше укупне политике. Њен саставни део је и испуњавање међународних обавеза међу којима је и сарадња са Хашким трибуналом. И Караџић је пристао на Дејтонски споразум који обавезује и на сарадњу са Хагом. Републичка влада, и ја као њен премијер, води политику на принципима Дејтона. Верујем да је тога данас свестан и цео српски народ. Без обзира на то што је с правом разочаран неким пресудама Хашког трибунала, као и спорим вођењем истрага против Фрање Туђмана и Алије Изетбеговића. Тешко се отети утиску да је Хаг намерно чекао да они умру, па да тек потом објави да су били под истрагом за ратне злочине.

Због чега, пре свих, бошњачки политичари покушавају да суђење Караџићу претворе у процес укидања Републике Српске?

Због тога што дејтонска БиХ није остварење њиховог ратног циља. И због тога што она, од Дејтона до данас, није нашла свој унутрашњи механизам функционисања. Зато је функционисање БиХ искључиво резултат ангажмана западних сила, који је понекад био врло ригидан, наредбодаван и обележен претњама и кажњавањем многих српских политичара. Све је то чињено да би се сачувала БиХ и стекла какав-такав логистички оквир за деловање. Таква политика, ипак, није дала повољан резултат. И данас је БиХ подељено друштво, не само државноправним и територијалним целинама него и у менталитету – начину живота, поимању истина, виђењу будућности… Оваква БиХ, наравно, није онаква какву Бошњаци хоће. И зато и будуће суђење Караџићу желе да претворе у суђење Републици Српској. Од тога, сигуран сам, неће бити ништа. Њему ће се судити као појединцу. Очекујем да ће ово суђење бити фер, да ће бити засновано на чињеницама, а не на стереотипима и на медијској представи о карактеру рата у БиХ и његовим жртвама. На основу таквог стереотипа, за команду одговорност је осуђена Биљана Плавшић, што је правно веома проблематично.

Зашто вас је Странка демократске акције оптужила да штитите ратне злочинце, иако су Караџић и Стојан Жупљанин ухапшени у Србији, а сви хашки оптуженици који су били у Републици Српској одавно су у Хагу?

Њима смета јака позиција Републике Српске и њене власти коју ја тренутно персонализујем. Ваљда мисле да ће, ако „дохакају Додику”, нестати Република Српска. То, наравно, није тачно, јер је Република Српска трајна категорија, призната Дејтонским споразумом. Она ће опстати и ићи даље, без обзира на то да ли ћу је водити ја или неко трећи. По том питању ја немам дилема, иако сам био противник одређених сегмената у политици Радована Караџића. Поготово одбијања плана Контакт групе у лето 1994. године, после чега је Република Српска доживела најтеже ратне тренутке – од броја жртава, преко губитка територија, до прогона српског народа из западнокрајишких општина.

Цех Караџићевог сакривања, испоставило се у Србији, платили су многи српски политичари, па и Република Српска. Могу ли се те штете отклонити?

Доћи ће време да и о томе трезвено поразговарамо. Ја поштујем законску одредбу да је помоћ починиоцу кривичног дела кривично дело. Али, свима који нису имали везе са сакривањем оптужених за ратне злочине, а многи нису, морају се вратити сва права која су им одузета одлукама високог представника. Те одлуке не могу издржати тест правног система, поготово у заштити људских права. Што је још горе, нехапшење Караџића, Младића, Жупљанина и других, иако они нису били овде, Педи Ешдаун је искористио за кажњавање Републике Српске. Због тога нам је отео војску, цивилну и војну обавештајну службу, формирао Агенцију за истраге и заштиту БиХ, Суд и Тужилаштво БиХ… Морам рећи да смо сви ми, без обзира на то ко је био на власти а ко у опозицији, тражили начин да из те приче изађемо са што мање штете. Наглашавам да сва та решења нису била одраз става било које политичке гарнитуре у Српској. Политичка воља свих нас је изворни Дејтонски споразум. Само на тај начин БиХ може да обезбеди своје кретање у мирну и успешну будућност.

Да ли бошњачки политичари сталним атацима на Републику Српску покушавају да издејствују продужетак мандата високог представника међународне заједнице?

На прошлој седници Савета за спровођење мира рекао сам да је међународна заједница направила много добрих ствари у БиХ, али сам и упозорио да ће задржавање високог представника, поготово на силу, довести до дебакла међународне мисије у БиХ. И данас мислим да је тако. На крају крајева, пре две године, ти исти представници међународне заједнице, говорили су да ће мисија Канцеларије високог представника престати чим БиХ са Европском унијом потпише Споразум о стабилизацији и придруживању. Сада се види да су тада лагали. Ја не спорим да високи представник, по Дејтону, има пуна овлашћења везана за питања ратних злочина. Но, његово мешање у унутрашње односе у БиХ, или, пак, у односе са Европском унијом не долази у обзир. Ако се то деси, опет ћемо, као у новембру прошле године када је високи представник покушао да нам мења начин одлучивања у парламенту БиХ и Савету министара, показати наше оштре намере. То не зависи од мене лично, него од читаве једне екипе која трајно стоји на овим позицијама.

На који начин се најбоље брани дејтонска позиција Републике Српске?

Развојем, економском стабилношћу и поштивањем закона. Сви показатељи говоре да ми идемо напред. Прошле године је запослено 28.000, а у првих шест месеци ове године још 14.000 људи, иако смо имали велики број стечајева. Сада у Републици Српској има око 130.000 незапослених, а пре неколико година било их је нешто мање од 200.000. Имамо суфицит буџета, на рачуну за развој имамо 1,3 милијарди марака. Тај новац користимо за дугорочни развој. Из буџета за јавну потрошњу трошимо 36,7 одсто, иако смо знатно повећали примања јавних службеника. Повећавамо обим бруто друштвеног производа и он ће ове године бити преко осам процената. У Федерацији је јавна потрошња 63 одсто, њихова пореска оптерећења су много виша. Код нас су доприноси на плате из фондова 48, а у Федерацији 61 одсто. Порез на добит у Републици Српској је 10, а у Федерацији 30 процената. Струја у Федерацији је за домаће потрошаче 30 одсто скупља него код нас. Да Република Српска није бољи део БиХ, онда 427 фирми из Федерације не би пребацило седиште код нас, чиме су постали наши порески обвезници. Због тога што већину новца из буџета троши на социјална давања, њу су хрватски политичари назвали „садака државом”. Да смо бољи део БиХ, потврдили су и Међународни монетарни фонд и Светска банка.

Шта је најбоље решење за БиХ?

Дејтонски споразум, без дилеме. Њиме је нађен баланс између три народа и два ентитета. Нажалост, поремећај тог баланса је довео до велике поларизације у БиХ. Ми бранимо оно што нам је остало, а они који су нешто добијали понашају се по систему „што више једу све су гладнији”. То је проузроковано и тиме што унутрашње политичке снаге нису решавале отворена питања, већ се то радило под притиском странаца, који су, када им ништа није полазило за руком, отварали процесе против значајнијих српских политичара, као што је Мирко Шаровић, Младен Иванић, па и ја. Све су то радили само због тога што смо се супротстављали неким њиховим плановима. Не могу ни да замислим шта мене очекује у будућности, ако о томе свему буду одлучивали странци.

Via Politika.

7 Comments

Fuzzy math in Serbia

May 16, 2008 at 11:50 am (Balkans)

One thing that’s noticeable about post-Soviet Eastern Europe is the reassertion of familiar political patterns, although often in new and surprising ways. You see a lot of this in the Western Balkans. Slovenia, for instance, looks more and more eerily like a southern Austrian province, albeit an Austrian province with its own flag and president, a seat at the UN and even a rinky dinky little army that gets allowed to go on Nato exercises once in a while. Croatia’s body politic was traditionally dominated by fanatical loyalty to the Catholic Church and the Habsburg family and, while the Habsburg connection has faded quite a bit, there’s a lot that’s recognisable from the past. Bosnia has reverted to being a foreign protectorate; Montenegro has reverted to being basically a pirate republic.

Where this is relevant is that, historically speaking, one of the basic cleavages of Serbian politics has been between pro-French and pro-Russian tendencies. When you remember this, it casts a bit of light on what’s conventionally portrayed in the metropolitan media as the struggle between “pro-Western reformers” on the one hand and “ultra-nationalists” on the other. And actually, if anyone in Serbia has a claim to being a pro-European democrat, it’s Vojislav Koštunica, arguably the most prominent intellectual Francophile in the country, as well as being the man who translated the Federalist Papers into Serbian way back in 1982, when many of today’s most ostentatious “democrats” were cosily ensconced in the Stalinist bureaucracy. If Koštunica is sufficiently pissed off with the EU to be throwing pro-Russian shapes, it says less about him than it does about EU diplomacy. Kosovo is only the most egregious example of this. We also have Brussels’ refusal to make a harmless goodwill gesture like relaxing visa restrictions. Not to mention Javier Solana playing silly buggers with accession talks, dangling association agreements before the Serbian voters when there’s an election coming up and then junking them afterwards, while hoping that the simple peasants won’t notice. Way to go, EU diplomacy!

So, what are we to make of Boris Tadić’s famous victory? Well, it’s not quite as clear-cut as Boris and his spin-meisters would have us believe. Yes, Boris has done rather well. Partly that’s due to rallying voters who were scared of the Radicals getting into power. And partly it’s because, while Boris’ Democratic Party ran alone last year, this time out it was the main force in a broad coalition. Well, I say a broad coalition – there are some fairly motley partners in there, basically anyone who could add a few votes to the total. Most notable is Mladjan Dinkić’s G17 Plus, the expert technocrats (or gang of crooks, depending on your perspective) who have had a stranglehold on the economic ministries since the October 2000 coup, and probably reckoned they were unelectable under their own name. There’s also the Vojvodina’s rightist hard man Nenad Čanak, and we are delighted to see Vuk Drašković being exhumed from his political grave. Boris’ coalition also includes the Srpska Lista za Kosovo i Metohiju, a smallish but significant outfit which returns a number of abstentionist deputies to the province’s puppet assembly, and that can’t have hurt his patriotic credentials.

But all this leaves Boris’ fractious alliance, even assuming he can hold it together, with 102 seats out of 250 in parliament, and getting the extra 24 to elect a prime minister will be no mean feat. Boris can probably rely on the Liberal Democratic Party, who are neither liberal nor democratic – they’re a bit like our own Desocrats, only considerably nastier. The LDP has consolidated its base among Belgrade’s trendy postmodern metrosexuals, which isn’t a big niche but is solid enough to deliver them 13 deputies. And then there are seven representatives of national minorities, of whom the Magyars and Albanians could be counted on to support Boris, and the Sandžak Muslims will vote for whoever looks most likely to deliver monetary returns to the Sandžak. But that still leaves Boris short.

In this situation, what’s a Balkan president to do? He might put in a call to Koštunica, although relations between the two men are extremely bad at the moment. Old Vojislav did badly in the election, but still has kingmaker potential. Worth noting, too, that the Radicals (who put on 40,000 votes but dropped three seats due to the vagaries of PR) have also been courting Koštunica, even unto the point of offering him the premiership. The Radicals will be well aware that Koštunica’s solid reputation as a conservative patriot, and one of the few people in Serbian politics who’s totally incorruptible, would do wonders for their own hoodlum image.

And so it’s likely to be crunch time for the Socialists, who did quite well. A lot of people assume the Socialists to be natural coalition partners for the Radicals, but perhaps not. The two parties have had a prickly relationship since the days when Milošević and Šešelj used to square off against each other, drawing not least on their respective identifications with the Titoist and monarchist traditions. More to the point, the Socialists and Radicals pitch their appeal to the same kind of electorate. Ask yourself why the PDs have never coalesced with Fine Gael, and you’ll get my point.

But could the Socialists enter a Tadić government? There’s already been some spin to that effect. The Democrats, despite their lack of any leftist policies, call themselves a centre-left party and are actually an affiliate of the Socialist International. (Which just goes to show that the Second will let anybody in these days.) The Socialists, on the other hand, are keen to big up their social democratic credentials. But what are the odds of any social democratic policies while the G17 Plus continue to control the economy, as they surely will in any Tadić government? And how could Boris, who derives a lot of his moral authority from having been part of the anti-Milošević opposition back in the day, justify going into government with the party of Milošević? Bizarre coalitions are commonplace in countries with PR systems – on the Emerald Isle we have two of them – but in most countries elections are not cast as grand existential struggles between good and evil.

Interesting times ahead. And watch out for the diplomatic SWAT teams being deployed from Brussels and Washington to fix things for Boris. What the Eurocrats fear isn’t so much a return to the 1990s (as if they bore no responsibility for that) but that a Radical-led government might make it more difficult to project Imperial power, by exposing the misdeeds of the Empire’s favoured parties while making life harder for the lavishly funded neocon fronts that proliferate in Belgrade’s NGO sector. I guess, in the end, it all comes down to how power-hungry Tadić is and how slippery the Socialists are. Don’t underestimate either.

4 Comments

Slobodan Antonić: Predsednik i većina

May 15, 2008 at 9:28 am (Balkans, Uncategorized)

„Upozoravam stranke koje su izgubile na izborima da se ne igraju voljom građana i pokušaju da formiraju vladu koja bi Srbiju vratila u devedesete godine. Neću dozvoliti tu vladu i sprečiću je demokratskim putem”.

Ovo je u izbornoj noći rekao Boris Tadić. Uz to, Tadić je kritikovao i neke ,„neonacističke medije”, najavljujući da će nova vlada, uz reforme u policiji i vojsci, sprovesti i „reformu u medijima”.

Moram priznati da su me ove Tadićeve izjave iznenadile. Tadić ima mnogo zasluga za konsolidaciju demokratije u Srbiji. On se rešio ekstremista iz stranke i ogradio od njihovog ruiniranja parlamentarizma. Usmerio je stranku ka političkom centru i umerio njenu političku retoriku. Zahvaljujući tome, dobio je predsedničke izbore 2004. Nakon njih, poštovao je predizborni dogovor i nije rušio vladu. Kao predsednik republike, demonstrirao je kako treba poštovati institucije parlamentarizma. Učestvovao je, sa svim parlamentarnim strankama, u donošenju novog ustava. U vladi sa Koštunicom pošteno se držao dogovorene politike. Bio je lojalan partner, sve dok kosovski vir nije prenapregao vladin brod, pa se on raspao.

U izbornoj noći, međutim, kao da se pred nama pojavio neko drugi. Kao da je umesto Tadića pred novinare izašao Čedomir Jovanović. Naime, ideja da volja građana nije isto što i parlamentarna većina tipična je za LDP. Kada je Tomislav Nikolić izabran za predsednika skupštine LDP je odmah porekao legitimitet tom izboru. „Tačno je, za Nikolića je glasala većina”, objašnjavao je Jovanović („Poligraf”, 9. maj 2007), ,,ali ta većina nije demokratska, ta većina nije onakva kakva mora biti da bismo mi poštovali volju te većine”.

Zato je Jovanović 2007. tražio od Tadića da nikako ne daje mandat suverenističkoj većini. „Predsednik republike”, tvrdio je Jovanović, „nema ustavnu obavezu da bilo kome da taj mandat. Pored toga što ga neko uverava da postoji većina, pitanje je karaktera te parlamentarne većine. Ako ta parlamentarna većina ugrožava ono što u Srbiji predsednik republike, njen demokratski lider treba da čuva, onda oni ne smeju dobiti taj mandat”.

Da li je moguće da je Tadić na to mislio kada je rekao da će „demokratskim putem” sprečiti obrazovanje suverenističke vlade? Nevolja je u tome što demokratske ustanove funkcionišu samo ako u njima sede ljudi odani demokratiji. Ako se u njima nađu oni koji opstruišu sistem, demokratija se izvrgava u suprotnost. U parlamentarizmu se podrazumeva da predsednik republike sastav vlade poverava onom ko ima većinu. To se podrazumeva i u našem ustavu. „Kandidata za predsednika vlade Narodnoj skupštini predlaže predsednik republike, pošto sasluša mišljenje predstavnika izabranih izbornih lista” (čl. 127). Predsedniku, po slovu Ustava, nije zabranjeno da predloži i nekoga ko nema većinu. Ali, takav predlog je besmislen zato što ne vodi izboru nove vlade. Postupak će morati da se ponavlja sve dotle dok predsednik ne predloži mandatara iz skupštinske većine.

Šta se, međutim, dešava ako predsednik neće da predloži mandatara iza koga stoji većina? Takvu mogućnost moderni ustavi ne uzimaju u obzir. Zato je nije imao u vidu ni naš. Ali, po duhu Ustava, predsednik je sastavni deo postupka obrazovanja skupštinske većine. On pomaže da se ona lakše artikuliše i da se odredi mandatar. On je možda i glavni akter tog dela demokratskog procesa. Zato predsednik koji neće da predloži mandatara iza koga je uspostavljena većina krši duh Ustava. U demokratskom sistemu to utvrđuje Ustavni sud. A predsednik koji povredi Ustav biće smenjen. Smenu pokreće trećina narodnih poslanika, o čemu mišljenje, u roku od 45 dana, daje Ustavni sud. Na kraju, glasovima dve trećine poslanika, predsednik biva razrešen dužnosti (čl. 118).

Jasno je da se odbijanjem predsednika da mandat za sastav vlade poveri onome ko obezbedi skupštinsku većinu otvara najdublja politička kriza. Reč je o zaoštravanju političkih odnosa sa nesagledivim posledicama. Jovanovićeva ideja iz 2007. bila je da predsednik, vrdajući sa davanjem mandata, sačeka da prođe rok od 90 dana i tako iznudi nove izbore. Odgovor na to bilo bi pokretanje postupka pred Ustavnim sudom. Ali, taj postupak, zavisno od većine u Ustavnom sudu, mogao bi da potraje. Mogu samo da zamislim u kakvim bi se političkim turbulencijama Srbija našla. Pola stranaka bi organizovalo izbore, druga polovina smenjivala predsednika, pola Srbije bi priznavalo jednu skupštinu i vladu, druga polovina drugu.

I ja se, kao i drugi komentatori, nadam da je one večeri Tadića samo ponela euforija. Ali, činjenica da je na trenutak i on izgubio glavu svedoči o teškim političkim iskušenjima. Ovo su odlučujući dani za demokratiju u Srbiji. Cela elita za nju odgovara, a najviše oni koji su na vrhu. I baš ljudi na vrhu treba da znaju da im u tome nikakva „reforma medija” neće pomoći. Istina o izneveravanju demokratije, u ime čega god da se izvrši, teško da će moći da bude sakrivena.

Via NSPM.

2 Comments

Hands across the peace processes

April 18, 2008 at 4:14 pm (Balkans, Norn Iron)

There is something of an identikit aspect to peace processes, isn’t there? I mention this only as a result of reading the latest column from the compulsively readable Nebojša Malić at antiwar.com. Even when I disagree with Nebojša, which is regularly, he always has something interesting to say.

So, the latest column derives from Nebojša’s recent visit to his native Bosnia, and his impressions of how the place has changed. For a start:

The war’s physical scars in Sarajevo have mostly healed. Several burned-out buildings still remain, but the rest have been repaired and renovated. The city actually looks better today than even in 1984, when it last received a facelift for the Winter Olympics. Old Austrian-era buildings, gone drab with soot and smog over the course of the 20th century, now sport light ochre, burgundy, beige and even green facades. Communist-built public housing in western parts of the city, once depressingly concrete-gray, now sports cheerful blues, greens, yellows and reds.

Yeah, our own urban regeneration is a bit like that. Nebojša continues:

And yet, only the buildings are cheerful. The people grumble. Work is scarce. Those who do work are sucked dry by a myriad of taxes and fees, levied to support a gargantuan bureaucracy. Bosnia-Herzegovina has more government officials per capita than anyplace else on the planet. And after paying all the local, provincial and entity taxes, Bosnians pay a crushing 17% VAT on everything they buy.

Hmm. Definitely something there for the peace studies curriculum. Go on…

Shiny stores filled with expensive goods line Sarajevo’s main streets, but there are few shoppers inside, and fewer buyers. The only burgeoning businesses are cafes, bars and eateries. There is never enough capital for entrepreneurs, but there is somehow always plenty of money for new mosques, or inflammatory war memorials.

Substitute murals for mosques, and you could almost be in Norn Iron. But what I like best is Nebojša’s description of the Bosnian parliament:

To make matters worse, occasional live TV coverage of the Parliament looks like a lowbrow reality show. Many of the legislators can’t string together a coherent sentence. Others communicate strictly through callous insults and outright slander. Diatribes and rants are common. There are a few honorable exceptions to the cesspool that is the Bosnian Parliament, but their presence only underscores the general rot.

Can we twin these guys with Stormont?

7 Comments

Koštunica: Proglašena lažna država Kosovo

February 20, 2008 at 11:44 am (Balkans)

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Београд, 17. фебруар 2008. године – Председник Владе Републике Србије Војислав Коштуница истакао је данас поводом једностраног проглашења лажне државе на тлу Србије да је до овог незапамћеног безакоња довела деструктивна, сурова и неморална политика силе коју спроводе САД.
Сајт Владе Србије преноси обраћање у целини.

Поштовани грађани Србије,

Данас, 17. фебруара противправно је проглашена лажна држава Косово на оном делу територије Србије који се налази под војном контролом НАТО пакта. До овог незапамћеног безакоња довела је деструктивна, сурова и неморална политика силе коју спроводе САД. Овим чином је целом свету дато на знање да Америка силу ставља изнад Повеље УН и да је спремна да самовољно, безобзирно и грубо крши међународни поредак зарад својих војних интереса.

Стављајући насиље изнад начела међународног права, САД су применом слепе силе понизиле и натерале ЕУ да погази принципе на којима почива сама ЕУ. Америка је присилила Европу да је следи у нечувеном насиљу које демонстрира над Србијом. Европа је данас погнула главу и због тога ће и она бити одговорна за све далекосежне последице које ће ово насиље имати по европски и светски поредак. Тиме је, пре свега, понижена Европска унија, а не Србија. Србија је одбила да се понизи, држећи се чврсто права и одбијајући да се повинује сили.

Једнострано проглашење лажне државе под старатељством САД и ЕУ, представља завршни чин политике силе која је започета агресијом и безумним бомбардовањем Србије и потом настављена доласком НАТО трупа на Косово и Метохију. Никада се као данас 17. фебруара није јасније показала истина зашто је Србија дивљачки разарана под НАТО бомбама. Прави темељ лажне државе Косово чине бомбе којима је НАТО рушио Србију. Зато треба рећи праву истину да иза ове лажне државе стоје, пре свега, војни интереси НАТО пакта, што је и потврђено Анексом 11 Ахтисаријевог плана. Само тако је могла настати оваква лажна држава, а она заувек остаје лажна макар за њено признање западне земље жртвовале цео светски правни поредак и ризиковале мир.

Председник САД, који је одговоран за ово насиље, и његови европски следбеници, биће црним словима уписани у историју Србије, али и у сваку историју међународног права и на њему заснованог светског поретка.

Добро нам је познато колико је опасна, сурова и слепа политика силе коју спроводе САД. Али и са тим сазнањем Србија је одлучно и једном за увек поништила све одлуке о проглашењу једностране независности, и све будуће акте који буду произилазили из ове противправне одлуке. Србија је поништила и одлуку ЕУ о нелегалном слању мисије у Покрајину, која је такође донета услед немоћи Европе. Овом одлуком Владе Србије утврђен је основ државног и националног програма Србије за Косово и Метохију после 17. фебруара.

Грађани Србије, за Србију не постоји и никада неће постојати лажна држава независно Косово на њеном тлу. За Србију су сви Срби и сви грађани у Покрајини који поштују нашу државу пуноправни и равноправни грађани Србије. Зато за све њих важе закони и институције Републике Србије. Од данас морамо показати још већу бригу и солидарност са нашим народом на Косову и Метохији. Сва министарства имају налог да раде и обезбеде значајно боље животне услове, да обезбеде нова радна места и покрену инвестиције у покрајини. Држава Србија ће повести највећу могућу бригу за сваког свог грађанина на Косову и Метохији. И на овај дан су наши министри са својим народом у Покрајини.

Упозоравамо да је на Косову и Метохији од доласка НАТО трупа убијено и протерано много Срба, а безбројне куће, древни манастири и цркве су спаљени. Од када је НАТО дошао сувише је зла и насиља нането Србима. Због тога ни по коју цену не сме доћи до нових невиних жртава на Косову, до нових прогона и нових рушења. Насиља према Србима било је превише и они који су преузели одговорност за безбедност у Покрајини морају апсолутно испунити своју обавезу.

Желим још једном да поновим да је Србија стара држава, а српски народ стари европски народ. Кроз вековну државотворну историју као народ искусили смо каква све зла може да учини страна сила. Али смо се кроз нашу историју још боље уверили у снагу права и правде и вредност слободе. Право, правда и слобода водиће нас све док у потпуности покрајину Косово и Метохију не вратимо тамо где јој је и место у уставноправни поредак Србије. И док политика силе мисли да је данас тријумфовала правећи лажну државу, милиони Срба већ мисле о дану слободе који мора доћи. Нико још никада није успео да спречи српски народ да оствари своју слободу. Све оно што не будемо могли ми данас да урадимо, урадиће сутра нова и боља покољења од нас. Косово је Србија и увек тако мора бити.

Грађани Србије, морамо заједно целом свету показати да се противимо разбијању наше државе и да не признајемо насилно стварање лажне државе на нашој територији. Противећи се политици насиља која се спроводи над Србијом, морамо јединствено подићи глас у знак подршке нашим сународницима и грађанима на Косову и Метохији. Влада и парламентарне странке заједно ће организовати мирне протесте широм Србије и договорити се када ће у Београду бити први велики протест. На овим протестима наше достојанство мора бити изнад силе против које се боримо. Силу оставимо насилницима који су се њоме обрукали за сва времена, а ми покажимо моћ права, правде и покажимо колико волимо и поштујемо слободу и слободну Србију са нашим Косовом и Метохијом. Док постоји српски народ Косово је Србија.

Via NSPM.

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Kosovo and realpolitik

February 18, 2008 at 11:08 am (Balkans, International Relations, Republicanism)

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Since it’s the big story, I suppose I’ll have to do something on the Kosovo UDI. We won’t get a consensus, but there are a few issues around this that are worth teasing out.

The first thing is that, while there are disputes in international law around the issue of unnegotiated secession and border changes, IR theory frowns on it very heavily. And indeed it’s extremely rare for secessionist para-states to get recognition. This of course goes back to the American Civil War, when foreign states (Britain in particular) refused to recognise the Confederacy in case their colonies started getting ideas. Now the days of the old-style colonial empires may be nearly (although not totally) over, but we’re also left with the still-rumbling question of ethnic separatism. Madrid’s cold feet over Kosovo are not, I suggest, entirely unconnected to the Spanish state’s increasingly draconian attempts to outlaw Basque nationalism, and the periodic rows with the Barcelona government about the Catalan autonomy statute.

But then, the lesson of this affair, and we’ll see it illustrated in other ways, is that precedents don’t count for nothing when the Empire has made a decision.

There are a couple of other interesting points I’d like to explore, which involves going back to the original break-up of Yugoslavia. Brussels, on a rather dubious self-awarded mandate, decided that it was going to manage the break-up, and set up the famous Badinter Commission, a panel of judicial activists, to legitimise what it was going to do. Suffice to say, the Eurocrats then went on to flout the rulings of their own pet panel.

To cut a long story short, Badinter determined three main things. First was an a priori determination that Yugoslavia was in “a state of dissolution”, which wasn’t necessarily obvious or inevitable at the time, and the only remaining question was the division of the spoils. Well, whether or not the dissolution was inevitable pre-Badinter, it certainly became so afterwards, and that was no accident.

The second point was that the six republics of Yugoslavia were the units of self-determination, and that republican borders were inviolable. This was problematic from the point of view of Yugoslav constitutionality. Nobody really understood the unworkable 1974 constitution (I suspect that was deliberate on the part of Kardelj), but there were two types of self-determination enshrined there. The republics and autonomous provinces were held to be the organs of regional self-government (although the Republic of Serbia was neither fish nor fowl, having an enormous West Lothian question in Kosovo), but self-determination was also vested in the nations (narodi) of Yugoslavia. This, in ambiguous Titoist style, was the pay-off for having 40% of Serbs outside Serbia. It also explains the explosive nature of Tudjman’s downgrading of Serbs in the Croatian constitution from constituent nation to ethnic minority, which remains their status today. A constituent nation has certain inherent collective rights. An ethnic minority has whatever right the government chooses to give it. The point was not lost on Serbs who never really wanted to be part of Croatia in the first place.

But anyway, the “international community” determined that republican borders were sacrosanct. The purpose behind this was to pre-empt any Serb claims on parts of Croatia or Bosnia. This also meant, however, that Kosovo became an internal Serbian affair, which is how international governments treated it for most of the 1990s. The distinction never much bothered the anti-Serbian racists in outfits like the ICG, who seem hell-bent on re-establishing the borders of 1942, but the chancelleries of the Empire were a good bit more cautious. At least until late 1998, that is. And even after the 1999 war, the question of sovereignty was put on the back-burner for a while. In reviving it of late, there have been a few Jesuitical legal arguments, but the basic line of Imperial spin has been, well, that was then and this is now.

It would be a mistake, however, to see the reluctance to depart from the “republican borders” formula as purely down to legal issues. Once the formerly sacrosanct borders become malleable, that opens up a whole other can of worms. The elephant in the room of course is Republika Srpska. There is the Sandžak question, which could be mighty destabilising. There is the Felvidék question currently exercising the government of Slovakia. Above all, there are the Albanian irredentist movements in Macedonia (currently controlling around a third of the country), Montenegro, Serbia’s Preševo Valley and Greece (although that last one might be a tough nut to crack). And so on.

The third thing to issue from Badinter was the concept of “standards before status”. This was actually a rather good idea, in that aspiring states would have to meet certain standards of democracy, the rule of law and respect for minorities before getting international recognition. Trouble is, the Eurocrats then immediately broke this rule on grounds of realpolitik. Macedonia met the required standards but didn’t get recognition, through being blackballed by Greece and failing to have lined up a powerful sponsor. Croatia, on the other hand, flagrantly failed to meet the required standards but did get recognition on the insistence of the German government.

The embarrassing thing is that the Empire did set standards for Kosovo to meet before getting recognition. Not a single one of them has been met. And yet, recognition will be forthcoming because the Powers have decided so, and to back down now would involve an unacceptable loss of face. Also, it will annoy the Russians, which is just the sort of “democratic geopolitics” that led to the Khmer Rouge holding Cambodia’s UN seat for a dozen years after they were overthrown. And if I was the Russians, I’d be sorely tempted to follow through on my threat of recognising Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Yes, behind all the chest-beating about the glories of humanitarian intervention there is a whole tangle of hypocrisy and naked power politics. But, in a situation where the spiv Milo Djukanović and the ethnic cleanser Hashim Thaçi are the agents of “democracy” against, er, the elected government in Belgrade, what do you expect? By the way, I give Thaçi credit for being able to say with a straight face that Kosovo will be judged on how it treats its Serbian minority. If there’s one left, that is.

My position, as it happens, is a more pragmatic one. I don’t claim to stand on the high moral ground of universal values, but I do think there are standards you can apply. And I also hold to the realist position that a strong moral case in the abstract doesn’t always equate to good policy.

For instance, as I’ve said before, there is a strong case in the abstract for Kosovo Albanians having the right to self-determination. In the here and now, I’m opposed to independence for Kosovo because the place is run by a bunch of mafiosi, its economy is based on the trafficking of drugs, arms and women, and giving this basket case the attributes of statehood will make a bad situation worse. (And why does Kosovo need a new flag when it could use the good old Jolly Roger? Although Montenegro might have a prior claim.) There’s an even stronger case for Chechen self-determination, but that isn’t very appealing when the actually existing Chechen separatist movement is dominated by crazy jihadis. And, before I get accused of being a terrible Slavophile, I’m also opposed to a declaration of independence by Republika Srpska, on the grounds that a decentralised Bosnia represents the best chance of avoiding a return to war.

Note that all these positions are conditional and all could change if circumstances change. It may not provide the easy satisfaction the interventionists get from venting about “evil Serbs”, “evil Russians”, or increasingly these days “evil Muslims”, but it’s less likely to lead you up ideological dead ends.

And, by the way, there are lots of de facto para-states knocking about. If we are going to back the idea of “standards before status” and all that malarkey, how come Kosovo can get the thumbs up but the Empire continues to pretend that Transnistria, South Ossetia, Karabakh or Abkhazia don’t exist? Or, for that matter, Somaliland?

Rud eile: I was sorry, although not surprised, to hear about the death at 59 of Brendan Hughes, a genuine republican hero. Brendan had been in very poor health for a long time, and it’s to his credit that he spoke out for what he believed in when he could have just fitted in comfortably to the peace process environment. He remained to the end a voice for those seeking an alternative to the GFA process, and was interested in political alternatives rather than just a reversion to old-style militarism. It’s a pity that he never got to see the emergence of a political alternative, because there’s still no credible one in sight.

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Javier Solana wins Serbian election

February 5, 2008 at 10:07 am (Balkans)

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Yes, the EU’s diplomatic SWAT team came through in Boris Tadić’s knife-edge victory over Tomislav Nikolić. With a margin of barely 100,000 plus change, we can assume that Brussels plenipotentiary Solana played a big role in ensuring the correct outcome, what with giving the electorate the impression that membership of that Napoleonic monstrosity and the associated milk and honey conditions were within their grasp if only they voted the right way. Having already pulled that stroke in the Montenegrin independence referendum, I guess we should thank Javier for demonstrating that you can indeed fool most of the people most of the time.

As I remarked a little while ago, this is one of those situations where language takes on an Orwellian cast. You may think “democracy” is all about a process whereby the people vote for their leaders and can, at least in theory, sack them via the ballot box. That sort of holds true in the metropolitan countries, but in the colonies it’s all about guaranteeing correct outcomes. After all, as the presidents of Venezuela and Belarus have discovered, you can win multiple elections and still be a “dictator”.

The Palestinians have some experience of this. You’ll remember that they democratically elected a Hamas government. Following which, the US, EU and Israel helped engineer a coup by the defeated Fatah in the name of “democracy”. Serbia too is a place where “democracy” has a specialised meaning. On the one hand, it means that the Radicals and Socialists must be kept out of government no matter how many votes they get. On the other, democratic governance in Serbia requires that the country’s two small neo-Jacobin parties, the G17 Plus and the Liberal Democrats (who, as Nebojša quips, are neither liberal nor democratic) must have a major share in power no matter how few votes they get. Your Serbian punter, who will have vivid memories of the “democratic” state of emergency that followed the Djindjić assassination, tends to be rightly cynical about this sort of rhetoric.

It’s probably partly due to the fact that this is Serbia, a country with a severe image problem despite seven years of rule by supine “democrats”, that there aren’t howls of outrage about the Eurocrats interfering in the electoral processes of a sovereign state. But there are other things going on here as well. Yes, you’ve got some unreconstructed Serbophobes crawling out of the woodwork (hats off to Ian Traynor of the Grauniad, who I often read for comedy value), but the thing that’s been most striking about the reportage from Belgrade has been its Cold War tone. There’s been a bit of chest-beating about the Radicals’ role in the Yugoslav wars of secession, when they were indeed involved in some pretty gruesome activities, but actually the media pack have been much keener to go after Nikolić on the basis of his pro-Russian foreign policy. The Eurocrats’ mutterings about Serbia possibly becoming another Belarus also come under this category. Those pesky Serbs and Belarusians, and about half of the Ukrainians, just haven’t grasped yet that their geopolitical role is to make like Latvia and be a useful bulwark against Tsar Vladimir.

The Kosovo question comes into this as well. There can be no doubt that Boris wouldn’t have won if he hadn’t neutralised the Kosovo issue by adapting to the national consensus of defending Serbian sovereignty and rejecting the Albanian separatists’ demands. Belgrade-based diplomats and imperial chancelleries have been spinning to the media that Boris doesn’t really mean what he says. Or maybe he does mean what he says, but he’ll acquiesce in what the Empire does. And, once foreign powers have carved out 15% of the national territory, most Serbs will accept the fait accompli and the Serbian body politic will be purged of the nationalist virus. Yeah, cos that really worked well at Versailles.

Now, let me say up front that I accept there is a strong case in the abstract for Albanian self-determination in Kosovo. I am however opposed to the current independence programme for a number of reasons, partly to do with protection of minorities or the lack thereof, partly to do with unnegotiated secession being extremely illegal under international law, but mainly because Kosovo is a de facto mafia state that, with the attributes of sovereignty, would just show up the Pirate Republic of Montenegro for the comic-opera concern it is. US and EU policy-makers know Kosovo is a disaster in the making, but they seem hell-bent on pressing ahead, apparently on the grounds that not pushing through independence would result in a massive loss of face. Then there’s also the possibility, that, with hardly any Serbs left in the province, the Albanian gangs would turn on the international troops and NGO workers.

This is all by way of being an object lesson for interventionists, in two ways. The Kosovo problem, as well as the simmering Bosnian protectorate, remind me of a conversation I had some years ago with a Greek political scientist. He remarked of the Cyprus question that this was absolutely typical of the Yanks and the West Europeans – they could have mediated a negotiated solution between the local parties decades ago, but they preferred to manage a problem rather than solve it, leaving a low-level dispute where they could continue to have long-term influence. Trouble is, these long-running disputes have a habit of turning around and biting you in the ass.

The second aspect is that the strong showing of the Radicals has put the willies up the Belgrade diplomatic corps in no uncertain fashion. Their huge vote, in a high turnout, goes against the conventional wisdom that the Radicals had a stalwart but rather elderly and rural core vote (this is important also for journalists who spend all their time in Belgrade talking to trendy Anglophone metrosexuals) and were completely incapable of breaking out of that core vote – so, the Radicals could only prosper if there was a low turnout. There’s a lesson here as well. Let’s say you spend a decade and a half treating a country like shit. Even when the “democrats” take over, you still treat the country like shit. Let’s say the “democrats” turn out to be not only undemocratic but, in large part, up to their ears in criminality and corruption. Let’s say the economy is down the dunny, and the response of the Empire is to demand more “free market reforms” like the ones that put it down the dunny in the first place. Would you expect the natives to be grateful to the missionaries, or would you expect them to get the pot boiling?

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