The Serbian Opposition and Civil Society: Roots of the Delayed Transition in Serbia

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International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society [ijps] ph212-ijps-469429 June 25, 2003 21:57 Style file version Nov. 19th, 1999

International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, Vol. 17, No. 1, Fall 2003 ( C© 2003)

The Serbian Opposition and Civil Society:Roots of the Delayed Transition in Serbia

Florian Bieber

The article discusses the reasons for the ten-year delay in the democratictransition in Serbia, focusing in particular on opposition parties and civilsociety. It argues that the policy of opposition parties was partly responsiblefor the failure of an earlier fall of the Milosevic regime. While civil societyhas been similarly weak and divided, the article details how a number ofNGOs proved to be crucial in the coordinated campaign which lead to theoverthrow of the Milosevic regime in October 2000.

KEY WORDS: Serbia; party system; nationalism; civil society; NGOs; democratization;transition.

The ten-year rule of Slobodan Milosevic’s regime created a veritablewasteland in Serbia. The country is biologically, materially, and morally ru-ined. All the institutions required for society to function democratically havebeen degraded and destroyed.1 Ten years after the other countries in Centraland Eastern Europe, Serbia was the last to see a peaceful and democraticchange of regime in October 2000.2 A specific type of a semiauthoritarianregime, coupled with a high level of nationalism and a fragmented opposi-tion, led to this delay in beginning the transition process. This article willseek to explain why a democratic change of power did not take place in the1990s and then turn to explore what had changed by September 2000 to allowfor the collapse of the rule of Slobodan Milosevic. While one might choosenumerous perspectives in highlighting this development,3 we shall focus par-ticularly on the role the alternatives to the regime—opposition parties andcivil society—played in first extending the rule of the regime and finallybringing it to an end, as well as the domestic reasons for this development.4

Senior Non-Resident Research Associate, European Centre for Minority Issues,Belgrade; Recurrent Visiting Professor, Central European University (Budapest). E-mail:[email protected].

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0891-4486/03/0900-0073/0 C© 2003 Human Sciences Press, Inc.

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THE OPPOSITION WITHIN THE SERBIAN PARTY SYSTEM

Serbia during the Milosevic era was marked by multiparty electionsthat were neither free nor fair. In fact, the political system of the Milosevicperiod could be characterized as a hybrid regime, which, while maintaininga democratic facade, was essentially authoritarian.5 Despite the governmen-tal control of the media, public administration, and economic and securityresources, political opposition did exist and opponents could participate inelections. The long delay of the democratic transition process alone can thusnot be explained solely by the autocratic nature of the regime. Instead someaspects of the delay (and later success) of the transition to democracy haveto be located within the opposition parties.

In the party system, neither the conventional categorization into a left-right ideological framework nor other aspects of established party systemsseem to adequately grasp the party landscape of Serbia. If we take (a) theidentity and nature of the party; (b) its relationship to other parties; and(c) the relationship between government and opposition as the key measuresfor party systems, Serbia during the 1990s was far removed from establishedsystems in Western Europe and consolidating systems in Central and EasternEurope.6 As we will see in the subsequent discussion, the difficulties theopposition had in challenging the regime emerged from all three aspects ofthe Serbian party system. From the first half of the 1990s until the first partialelectoral victory of the opposition in 1996, the most appropriate category wasthe position of the parties toward nationalism, the war in neighboring Bosniaand Croatia, and the support for reform. Between 1997 and 2000, with thehardening of the regime’s authoritarian tendencies, the relationship betweenopposition and the regime moved to the foreground.

THE SERBIAN OPPOSITION IN THE EARLY 1990S

Although Serbian voters were able to vote in fourteen parliamentaryand presidential elections between 1990 and 2000—caused by early electionsand elections for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Serbia—the oppo-sition did not succeed in attaining any political power before the fall of 2000,with the exception of a number of cities and communes in the local electionsin November 1996. Unlike other transitional countries, which usually sawa broad anti-Communist coalition in the first free election, the opposition,with an extreme nationalist and a liberal wing, could not mount a unifiedchallenge to Milosevic in the first elections,7 which confirmed the dominanceof the Socialist Party and extended the fragmentation of the opposition.8 De-spite numerous attempts throughout the 1990s to create a broad antiregime

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The Serbian Opposition and Civil Society 75

coalition, these alliances were usually of short duration, broke up before theelections, lacked a clear program, and, most important, never included allmajor opposition forces.9

The opposition in the mid-1990s could be grouped into three differentstreams: the extreme-nationalist, democratic national, and reform-oriented.10 Some parties switched among the different streams, due to thechanging position of each on the war in Croatia and Bosnia and because oferratic party leadership. In the first years of the multiparty system in Serbia,the Serbian Renewal Movement (Srpski pokret obnove, SPO) led by VukDraskovic and the Serbian Radical Party (Srspka radikalna stranka, SRS) ofVojislav Seselj belonged to the extreme nationalist opposition.11 The Demo-cratic Party of Serbia (Demokratska stranka Srbije, DSS), which emergedfrom a split with the Democratic Party (Demokratska stranka, DS) underthe leadership of Vojislav Kostunica in 1992, oscillated between the nation-alist and democratic opposition. Other smaller nationalist opposition partiesemerged before the first multiparty elections in 1990, but failed to emergeas important factors in Serbian politics.12

Parties in this grouping gave absolute priority to the “solution” of thenational question, including the use of force, and placed less emphasis onthe democratization of Serbia. This neglect of democracy only left suchgroupings the options of joining the regime (implicitly or explicitly) or beingmarginalized. As a result only the Radical Party continued as a represen-tative of this political wing of the opposition (1993–1997) or as part of theregime (1992–93, 1998–2000).13

The second group combined the most important political forces throughthe 1990s and took a rather ambivalent position towards nationalism and inits relations to the regime. The most important party here is the DemocraticParty and the parties that emerged from splits in it, such as the DemocraticParty of Serbia, the Democratic Center (Demokratski centar, DC) and oth-ers. This group placed greater importance on the internal democratizationof Serbia than on the national question. Nevertheless, the Democratic Partyoccasionally adopted a nationalist agenda, most notably in 1994–95 when itsupported Radovan Karadzic after Slobodan Milosevic broke off contactswith the political leadership of the Bosnian Serbs. The most powerful oppo-sition party of the 1990s, the Serbian Renewal Movement, also belonged tothis category after abandoning its radical nationalist position with the begin-ning of the war in Bosnia. While maintaining strong nationalist symbols, itactually advocated an end to Serbian involvement in the Bosnian war moreactively than did the Democratic Party.14

The last stream emerged from the reform-oriented parties, which sup-ported the pro-Yugoslav agenda of the last Yugoslav Prime Minister, AnteMarkovic. These parties include the Civic Alliance of Serbia (Gradjanski

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savez Srbije, GSS), as well as the small Social Democratic Union and theSocial Democratic League of Vojvodina. These parties—whose influenceremained limited—were vocal critics of the predominant nationalist climateand consistently criticized the wars in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo (seeTable 1).

THE OPPOSITION FROM 1997 TO 2000

Through the continuing fragmentation of the opposition over the courseof the 1990s and the failure of the protests in the winter of 1996–97, a newstructure of the opposition parties emerged. Still, in the absence of strongprogrammatic orientations, one cannot classify the parties along a traditionalleft-right scheme, despite their names. Instead, the parties can be best under-stood in their relationship to the regime. Between 1997 and the elections inSeptember 2000, one can identify the following groupings in the opposition:

radical opposition to the regime (rejecting the policies of and cooperationwith the regime);

moderate opposition (rejecting the policies, but accepting cooperation);moderate opposition (rejecting cooperation, but supporting similar

policies).21

The breakup of the opposition coalition Zajedno in 1997 and the electoralboycott of numerous opposition parties led to the emergence of the radicalopposition. The radical opposition rejected any cooperation with the regimeand supported a fundamental change of the policies in Serbia. The nationalquestion did feature among the groups’ priorities, but they primarily focusedon economic and social issues. For example, Vladan Batic, president of theChristian Democratic Party and at the time coordinator of the prime rep-resentative of the radical opposition, the Alliance of Change, stated in aninterview in late 1999 that the issue of Kosovo played only a marginal roleon the political agenda, while poverty, corruption, democratization, and hu-man rights, as well as the return of Serb refugees and the reintegration ofYugoslavia into international organizations all were more significant.22

The Democratic Party stood at the heart of the Alliance for Change,which also included the Civic Alliance, some smaller parties, and a number ofpersonalities (such as the former Prime Minister, Milan Panic, and the formerHead of the Central Bank, Dragoslav Avramovic). The Alliance, foundedin 1998, also represented the core of the Serbian opposition coalition, theDemocratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS).

The second group within the opposition also maintained some policydifferences with the regime, albeit not as strongly as the first group; it was,

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Tabl

e1.

Res

ults

ofth

eSe

rbia

nan

dY

ugos

lav

Par

liam

enta

ryE

lect

ions

,%of

Vot

es,%

ofSe

ats,

1990

–200

0(G

over

ning

Par

ties

Shad

ed)20

SPS

SRS

SPO

DSS

DS

Serb

ian

Ele

ctio

ns,D

ecem

ber

1990

46.1

%,7

7.6%

15.8

%,7

.6%

7.4%

,2.8

%Y

ugos

lav

Ele

ctio

ns,15

May

1992

43%

,69%

30%

,28%

Yug

osla

vE

lect

ions

,Dec

embe

r19

9216

31.5

%,4

3.5%

21.8

%,2

7.8%

17.2

%,1

8.5%

(DE

PO

S)6,

0%,4

.6%

Serb

ian

Ele

ctio

ns,D

ecem

ber

1992

28.8

%,4

0.4%

22.6

%,2

9.2%

16.9

%,2

0.0%

(DE

PO

S)4.

2%,2

.4%

Serb

ian

Ele

ctio

ns,D

ecem

ber

1993

1736

.7%

,49.

2%13

.8%

,15.

6%16

.6%

,18%

5.1%

,2.8

%11

.6%

,11.

6%Y

ugos

lav

Ele

ctio

ns,N

ovem

ber

1996

1845

.41%

,59.

26%

18.7

8%,1

4.81

%23

,8%

,20.

37%

(Zaj

edno

)Se

rbia

nE

lect

ions

,Sep

tem

ber

1997

1934

.2%

,44%

28.1

%,3

2.8%

19.1

%,1

8%Y

ugos

lav

Ele

ctio

ns,S

epte

mbe

r20

0032

.2%

,40.

7%8.

6%,5

.6%

4.7%

,0%

42.9

%,5

3.7%

(DO

S)Se

rbia

Ele

ctio

ns,D

ecem

ber

2000

13.5

%,1

4.8%

8.5%

,9.2

%3.

7%,0

%64

.4%

,70.

4%(D

OS)

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however, ready to enter into direct cooperation with the regime. That partof the opposition was represented by the SPO and Vuk Draskovic, whichsought to enter a coalition with the regime in 1997 and eventually joined theYugoslav government briefly in 1999. Despite harsh criticism of the SocialistParty and its neocommunist partner JUL, the party dropped its antiregimestance of the early 1990s for most of the period under consideration here.Only as a consequence of the two assassination attempts in September 1999and June 2000 against Draskovic did it return to its radical antiregime stance.It refused, however, any cooperation with the opposition parties.23

Similar to the first radical opposition, the third and last part of theopposition opposed cooperation with the regime, but they supported some ofthe regime’s more nationalist positions. The nationalist line, as representedby the Democratic Party of Serbia, led the party to support some of thepolicies of the regime toward Kosovo.24 Throughout the 1990s Kostunica andthe DSS adopted a nationalist line, which included support for the nationalistSerb Democratic Party (Srspka demokratska stranka, SDS) in Bosnia.25 Withthe exception of the party’s participation in the DEPOS coalitions in theearly 1990s, the DSS has been reluctant to join the opposition coalitionsand frequently has criticized the policies of the other opposition parties. InJanuary 2000, however, the DSS, somewhat reluctantly, joined together withthe opposition parties in the establishment of DOS.

DOS has essentially been a combination of the radical opposition withthe second stream of the moderate opposition, explaining the internal di-visions over the national question. During the electoral campaign, mostparties of the radical opposition emphasized social and economic alterna-tives to the policies of the regime. The presidential candidate, Kostunica,on the other hand, placed more weight on the national question and criti-cized the Serbian opposition for their failings in defending Serbian nationalinterests:

In Serbia . . . the national question will have a significant impact because of the situ-ation Serbia is in because of the bombing, because of the propaganda of Milosevic.One cannot put it aside. We must have an answer to that. A large part of the Serbianopposition is not aware of this fact. So it is underestimating the importance of thenational issue. We have to try to find, and this is the position of the DSS, to findthe possibility to compromise between the importance of the national issue and theimportance of Serbia being a normal member of international organizations, the EU,etc. I think that part of the opposition underestimated this national issue of Kosovo.26

Despite his focus on “national” issues, Kostunica placed great importance onthe normalization of the country and did not engage in the sort of projectionsof national grandeur that many nationalist politicians and intellectuals didthroughout the 1990s. Indicative of this change of tone was his last campaignspeech on September 2000 in Belgrade:

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I am an ordinary, average man. It has never occurred to me to see myself as somehistoric greatness. I have never dreamed about some global historic mission of mine.I only know that what you want, and what I want, of course, is to live in an ordinary,average European country . . .Some would say: averages are boring, there is nothingexciting about them, nothing vivid. Something is always going on here. Yes, indeed!Something has been going on for more than half a century, more intensively so overthe last decade. These dramatic events of ours have made us all but unique in theworld. . . . I am absolutely sure that we have tired of all those stormy and tempestuousevents. . . .We need a kind of life in which excitements would be confined primarilyto the personal plane—let the public, political life be monotonous, even boring if youlike.27

The opposition—divided by many programmatic issues and personalanimosities—was united solely by its rejection of any cooperation with theregime, symbolized by the choice of Kostunica, who was the only major partyleader not tainted by previous episodes of cooperation with Milosevic.28

The defeat of the Socialist Party and its coalition partners, as well as theSPO fundamentally transformed the party system in Serbia, which will leadto a new party landscape in the years to come. In essence, the oppositioncoalition provides for the core of future parties in Serbia. With the end of therule of Milosevic and complete victory over the ancien regime, the unifyingfactor disappeared and the former opposition coalition slowly disintegrated.

The track record of the Serbian opposition before the summer of 2000was dismal and the parties that make up the political opposition were widelyidentified as being responsible for standing in the way of achieving power.Some analysts described the opposition as the fourth pillar of power ofthe regime.29 Similarly, the Center for Policy Analysis came to the soberconclusion that

. . . the Serbian opposition consists of writers, philosophers, historians . . .A question,however, brings itself up there—isn’t it shameful to still be an amateur after ten yearsof exercise in changing the authorities? On the other hand, there is a considerablenumber of annalists who, although they are inclined against the regime, cannot helppointing out that the opposition as such simply does not want to take over the rule.30

We cannot be satisfied with this (however tempting) explanation, as wehave to assume that parties are founded to enter government or at leastinfluence the policy making process in the country.31 In the case of Serbia,the opposition accomplished neither before 2000.

The failure of the opposition throughout the 1990s and its subsequentsuccess in the Yugoslav and local elections in September 2000 can be at-tributed to five factors:

1. Fragmentation of the Opposition: The extreme fragmentation of theopposition into over twenty parties, most with no infrastructure andlittle membership, rendered any concerted effort against the regimemore difficult. Although most parties had only a small following, they

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were run by public figures that could command some attention, whichgave them weight beyond their numbers. The majority of the partysplits were the result of the personal differences of party figures, giv-ing the opposition the appearance of being more concerned with per-sonal power than with policy.32 The building of a broad coalition, initi-ated with the January 2000 agreement between all opposition parties,was a prerequisite not only in terms of combining the vote, but also indemonstrating unity. The bad performance of the Serbian RenewalMovement in the elections—down from a rather stable support of 15–20 percent in the 1990s to less than 4 percent in 2000—can be partlyattributed to its unwillingness to join the larger coalition in 2000.

2. Lack of Internal Democracy: Closely tied to the problem of frag-mentation is the apparent lack of democracy within opposition par-ties throughout the 1990s. Those who opposed the party leader wereleft only two options: marginalization within the party or splittingto form a new one. The impact of this pattern on the Serbian oppo-sition has been two-fold. Mostly the same party leaders dominatedthe opposition throughout the 1990s, although many have been as-sociated with political defeats and could not offer much to reachnew constituencies.33 Second, the parties’ internal authoritarianism,in fact replicating the regime’s lack of democracy, did not bode wellfor a fundamental shift in the political behavior of the oppositiononce in power. These fears were partly confirmed by the behavior ofthe SPO in administering Belgrade. However, the unwillingness ofZoran Djindjic to run for the Yugoslav presidency, despite his beingthe head of the dominant party in the DOS, symbolized a readinessto subordinate personal politics to the larger aim of bringing abouta regime change. In addition, the exclusion of the SPO, more fre-quently than other opposition parties associated with the personaldominance of the party leader, Vuk Draskovic, and with corruptionhas in some ways improved the democratic credentials of the DOS.

3. Lack of Distance from the Regime: The Serbian opposition wasmarred by frequent cooperation and co-optation by the regime inthe 1990s. This was particularly significant because the Socialist Partycould not rule without coalition partners after 1992. Formal and infor-mal coalitions thus helped extend the rule of Milosevic and blurredthe distinction between opposition and regime. In 1993, for exam-ple, the New Democracy Party joined the government, together withsome members of the Democratic Party; in 1997, discussions withthe regime by some members of the Zajedno coalition led to itsbreakup, followed by the negotiations of the Serbian Renewal Move-ment with the regime in 1997–98, leading to its brief stint in the Yu-goslav government in early 1999. The increasing repression of the

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regime in the aftermath of the failed civic protests in 1996–97 helpeddeepen the divide between regime and opposition. In addition, thesuccessful mobilization of Otpor (see below) put an end to most in-stances of cooperation with the regime and refocused the oppositionon toppling Slobodan Milosevic.

4. The “National Question”: Most opposition parties, rooted in eitherintellectual “dissident” circles or strong anticommunist ideas, strug-gled throughout the 1990s with the “national question.” Many partiesfrequently out-flanked the nationalist policies pursued by the regime,allowing the regime to present itself as a force for moderation. In ad-dition, the opposition allowed the regime to play on the territorialinsecurity that emerged from the open national question, which againhelped to consolidate the rule of the regime as a force for stabilityand continuity. Finally, the national policies pursued by the politi-cal opposition at times alienated the national minorities in Serbia,which amount to over a third of the population. By defining them-selves as parties of the Serbian nation, not of Serbian citizens, theopposition parties—with few exceptions—promoted the creation ofminority parties or the electoral and institutional boycott of minori-ties altogether. This deprived the opposition of a significant share ofthe electorate, which had little sympathy for the repressive policiesof the regime.34 Part of the success of the DOS has been the inclusionof regional and minority parties, most notably the Muslim/BosniakSandzak Coalition and the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians.

5. The Lack of Political Power: As the opposition failed to win anyelection before 1996, the parties of the opposition never held anypolitical office, except when entering a coalition with the regime.Political power was necessary to counter the predominance of theregime structures on all levels. Thus, the victory of the oppositionin 1996 in many cities and communes throughout Serbia was crucialin preparing the way for the victory in 2000. The opposition tookcontrol of many local media that are under the control of the lo-cal town councils, allowing for a more concerted challenge to themedia dominance of the regime. Despite the extremely high de-gree of centralization of Serbia, a number of opposition coalitionsthroughout Serbia (where the coalition Zajedno frequently survivedthe break-up at the republican level) have been successful in runningcities and towns. However, as the sociologist and opposition intellec-tual Nebojsa Popov has pointed out, the opposition parties in poweron the local level often exhausted their popularity through internalquarrels, offering few policies that could secure additional popularsupport.35 It has, nevertheless, been remarkable that the most sig-nificant protest against the regime emerged from the provinces and

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small towns administered by the opposition (such as Cacak), artic-ulating itself in citizen’s parliaments and other alternative forms ofprotest.36

The opposition managed to overcome some of the crucial prob-lems that prevented it from performing successfully against theregime; however, the new governing parties remain weak and frag-mented, as evidenced by the instability of the post-October 2002 rul-ing coalition. In fact, the internal conflict between the Yugoslav andSerbian authorities and the parties of the DOS after the change ofpower resemble the conflictual relations between the parties through-out most of the 1990s. Thus the cause for the parties’ success in tem-porarily overcoming their conflicts needs to be explained throughother political actors and civil society.

THE ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE PEACEFULREVOLUTION IN SERBIA

Civil society in Serbia has been much praised after the successful changeof regime in October 2000. It appeared that mass mobilization, based on thesupport of strong civil-society organizations was a driving force behind thecollapse of the Milosevic regime. However, for much of the 1990s, actorsof civil society concerned with democratization suffered from pronouncedstructural weaknesses.

In fact, when discussing civil society in Serbia, we have to distinguish itfrom Serbia as a civil society. Civil society often has a strong (positive) norma-tive dimension,37 including opposition to militarism, safeguarding toleranceand differences, secularization, and equality for all citizens irrespective oftheir background.38 If one is it to accept such an approach to civil societyas a form of societal organization that is based on pluralism of power anddiversity of opinion in a setting of voluntaristic organization, one has to notethat civil society can exist in a system that may not be considered a civilsociety on the whole. In fact, Ernest Gellner distinguishes between a “civilsociety” and a society containing civil society.39 While such coexistence isdifficult, it is not impossible: a case is the Serbian opposition, a democraticsubsphere coexisting with a semiauthoritarian system.

CIVIL SOCIETY—DRIVING FORCE OR MARGINAL FACTORIN MILOSEVIC’S SERBIA?

The past two decades saw the emergence of numerous organizations,primarily in Belgrade, that sought to act in support of broad societal issues,

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such as human rights, democratization, women’s rights, and opposition to thewars. In the 1980s numerous human rights organizations sought to defendfreedom of speech by demanding the release of prominent political prison-ers. While some organizations remained loyal to their human rights agenda,some came to identify closely with the defendees, include such prominentnationalists as Vojislav Seselj. In addition, the plight of Serbs in Kosovodominated the agenda for human rights organizations in Serbia, further-ing a move from the defense of individual human rights to collective na-tional rights, defending them not against the state, but against a differentnation.40

The rise of Milosevic and the emergence of nationalism as the dominantsocial and political features in Serbia in the late 1980s triggered the emer-gence of the “other Serbia.” This term has been used to describe a group ofNGOs and intellectual circles that sought to formulate a nonnationalist alter-native to the regime and courageously oppose the war. These organizationsranged from intellectual groups, such as the Belgrade Circle, to activists,such as Women in Black and the Center for Anti-War action. Althoughthese organizations fulfilled an important symbolic function in challengingthe seeming homogeneity in intellectual and popular support for extremenationalist policies, their reach rarely extended beyond Belgrade (and someother urban centers).41

With the exception of some antiwar protests, most organizations of the“other Serbia” lacked the means to mobilize a number of citizens largeenough to challenge the regime. Serbia throughout the 1990s did see, how-ever, significant civil protests, which were mostly, one could argue, a moresignificant threat to the regime than opposition parties. There were sevenwaves of significant protest during the rule of Milosevic and a multitude ofsmaller demonstrations and gatherings:

antiregime protests, March 1991;student protests, June–July 1992;the opposition Vidovdan assembly, June 1992;protests against electoral fraud, November 1996–February 1997;student protests, November 1996–March 1997;antiregime protests, Fall 1999;protests against election fraud and for a change of power, September–

October 2000.42

The protests, although essentially unsuccessful until Fall 2000,43 symbolizedthe continuation of civil opposition against the regime. Their failure mostlydid not lie in the protests themselves (e.g., low turnout), but rather in theinability of the political opposition to successfully challenge the regime onthe basis of these protests.

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In this context the daily demonstrations in the winter of 1996–97 wereof tremendous significance for the development of civil society and the inter-relationship with political parties. The break-up of the opposition coalitionZajedno thoroughly disillusioned most politically active citizens and dimin-ished the already feeble confidence in opposition parties. This effectivelystrengthened civil society, as citizens chose to be active in NGOs and othercivil society movements, rather than in parties. The outcome of the protestsalso demonstrated that the protests in the form in which they took place in1996–97 can be successful, setting off a search for alternative means of mo-bilizing citizens against the regime, eventually leading to the emergence ofOtpor. Finally, the protests showed the significance of a well-defined event intriggering public dissatisfaction, leading to massive protests. Most oppositionpoliticians were surprised by the turnout at the beginning of the protests inNovember 1996. The concrete event of election fraud turned out to be moreeffective than the more serious, but less tangible, devastation of the economyand society and the wars in Bosnia and Croatia.44 This has been visible inthe failure of protests at other moments throughout the 1990s to mobilize,as they lacked a concrete event against which to rally citizens. However,the failure of the protests also lay in the fact that the opposition’s demandsnever went beyond the correction of the electoral fraud, which eventuallyenabled the regime to fulfill the demands without having to surrender broadpolitical powers.

THE ROLE OF NGOS IN THE CHANGE OF REGIME

A number of organizations emerged from the experience of the 1996–97 protests, which eventually helped bring about the change of regime inOctober 2000. Otpor was one of the movements, which were very much aproduct of the failed protests.45 It emerged in 1998 in response to the uni-versity law, which in effect abolished the autonomy of the universities.46

Students, frustrated with the opposition’s infighting in 1997 and the fail-ure of the student protests, adopted a different strategy, not seeking largestreet protests, but mocking the regime through small, well-planned perfor-mances.47 These acts revealed some of the fundamental weaknesses of theregime and authoritarian regimes in general.48 By not possessing a hierar-chical organizational structure, Otpor evaded both repression by the regimeand co-optation by the opposition, rendering it the force most harshly sup-pressed by the regime throughout its rule. Frequent arrests of members andthose who simply wore Otpor T-shirts in early 2000 helped the movementreach wider segments of the population throughout Serbia. By July 2000, itcould count on some 30,00–40,000 activists, 120 local branches, and sevenregional centers.49 Through its work, Otpor has consistently tried to not only

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to place the regime on the defensive, but also to force the opposition partiesto reject any cooperation with the regime.50

Next to Otpor, the Center for Free Elections and Democracy came intobeing as a response to the election fraud and the subsequent protests. Thecenter took upon itself the task of observing elections and monitoring elec-tion irregularities. In addition, the organization proposed alternative electionlaws and produced the most detailed analyses of elections in Serbia.51 Mostimportant, the organization raised awareness of the importance of electionsand trained a large number of Serbs to monitor elections. Based on the as-sumption that earlier elections had, in part, brought the regime to power asa result of fraud, minimizing electoral fraud through monitoring was consid-ered an important tool. Furthermore, uncovering any fraud had also beendemonstrated to be a key mobilizing factor for protests. Thus, a credibleorganization was required to monitor elections, report fraud, and thus helpenergize opposition protests.

Another nongovernmental organization resulting from the crucial1996–97 period is G17, which brought together leading opposition econo-mists in a think tank. The group sought to formulate an economic programfor Zajedno. After the disintegration of the coalition, it worked on eco-nomic reform programs for Montenegro and the Republika Srpska.52 Afterthe Kosovo war, G17 expanded its activities, opening branches throughoutSerbia and creating G17Plus to include social scientists and intellectualsmore broadly in its work. Instead of limiting its work to advising the opposi-tion, the group sought to mobilize popular support for social and economicreforms. Shortly after the Kosovo war, G17 proposed a “Stability Pact forSerbia” with the aim of creating a government of experts to bring aboutan economic recovery and increase opposition influence. More important,the group carried out a number of projects in 1999 and 2000 that sought toalleviate the consequence of the war, sanctions, and the economic decline,such as “energy for democracy,” “asphalt for democracy,” and “schools fordemocracy.” These projects, mostly financed by the European Union andNorway, provided concrete assistance to opposition-run towns and citiesacross Serbia.53

These organizations, as well as a host of spontaneous groupings andother NGOs, provided the network through which the united oppositioncould win the elections in September 2000.54 We can identify at least fouraspects in which the role of the aforementioned organizations has beeninstrumental:

1. Mobilizing Citizens: Otpor and many other organizations played akey role both in encouraging voter participation and increasing peo-ple’s willingness to protest against the regime.55 Part of the campaign

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was negative, continuing the previous strategy of Otpor by highlight-ing the authoritarian character of the regime. A different streamof the campaign was distinctly positive, encouraging the participa-tion of young first-time voters through rock concerts and a postercampaigns.56

2. Gathering Information: In the past the opposition, in addition to be-ing fragmented, lacked information about popular opinion and pref-erences. The electoral campaign in 2000 saw a shift in the strategyof the opposition on the basis of increased information. The choiceof Vojislav Kostunica, for example, was very much based on opin-ion polls, which demonstrated wider support for him than for otheropposition politicians.57 Organizations such as the Center for PolicyAnalysis and other pollsters provided the opposition with the infor-mation necessary to mount a successful campaign.

3. Formulating Alternatives: Throughout the 1990s the opposition suf-fered from serious programmatic weaknesses. The party programswere largely general in content and gave more attention to the “na-tional question” than to concrete economic and social issues.58 Coali-tion agreements throughout the decade contained very littlesubstance and mostly reflected the minimal consensus among theparties engaging in the coalition, rather than a viable alternative tothe regime.59 In the summer of 2000 G17Plus helped the oppositionformulate a program. This program contained a concrete economicand social agenda, as well as a timetable for the implementation ofnew laws.60

4. Uniting the Opposition: As outlined above, the opposition did notsuffer only from consecutive splits. Internal divisions frequentlyproved to be greater even than the parties’ hostility to the regime.In-fighting led to the breakup of previous coalitions and increasedthe fragmentation of the opposition. The unification of the opposi-tion, first in January 2000 and later in the form of the DemocraticOpposition of Serbia, was largely the result of intensive pressure byOtpor.61 Otpor insisted on the unity of the opposition, threatening toshame any party breaking from the united front. The poor showingof the Serbian Renewal Movement in September 2000 was not onlydue to the increasingly erratic behavior of Vuk Draskovic, but wasalso a result of its unwillingness to join opposition ranks, for which itwas severely criticized by Otpor.

Civil society emerged as a formidable force through the elec-toral process in 2000. In particular, some actors managed to mobilizesuccessfully, learning from the experience of other countries, mostnotably Slovakia and Croatia, where get-out-the-vote and election

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monitoring organizations have been similarly instrumental in oust-ing authoritarian rule. At the same time, the reach of most actors inSerbian civil society remains limited in the post-Milosevic era, as themass mobilization in the fall of 2000 was centered on one goal—theouster of Slobodan Milosevic—and then subsided. With the begin-ning of the democratization process, space for civil society increased.At the same time, the organizations that helped to articulate societalissues have faced three obstacles: First, they continue to be depen-dent on external funding. Second, many have lost their raison d’etrewith the fall of the Milosevic regime. Finally, many activists fromthe civil society sector have been absorbed by the new state struc-ture, weakening some organizations in the short and medium run ortransforming them into political organizations.62

CONCLUSIONS

Both the political opposition and some new actors of Serbian civil soci-ety managed to overcome some of the crucial hurdles in 2000 that had earliereffectively prevented the democratization of Serbia. As has been shown, thischange was not a sudden development, but rather was the result of an oftenpainful learning process; in particular, the experience of the civic protestin 1996–97 played a significant role in strengthening non-party opposition.Underlying the developments is a slow change in public opinion, causedby the continuing decline of the quality of life, the increasing repression theregime, and the failure of extreme nationalism, which saw protracted territo-rial insecurity.63 The Milosevic regime, together with the previous communistheritage, has had a profoundly negative impact on the political and publicsphere of Serbia, which could not be reversed by elections in themselves,but only a by a long-term process of democratization. With the electionsin the fall and winter of 2000, this process merely began. The difficultiesin the post-Milosevic democratization process have been reminiscent of theaforementioned obstacles to the cohesion of the opposition under Milosevic.Thus, not only the legacy of the regime shapes post-authoritarian politics,but the legacy of opposition and civil society in such a system also have afar-reaching impact on the nature of the democratization process.

ENDNOTES

1. Joint Statement of the Serbian Opposition, January 2000, Betaweek, January 13, 2000.2. Montenegro has not seen a change of government in the sense that the successor party

to the League of Communists, the Democratic Party of Socialists, maintained power. Theparty did, however, transform itself and fragmented in 1997.

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3. Additional factors to be taken into account, beyond the discussion here, are the weaknessof the Milosevic regime by late 2000 and the degree of negotiation between elements ofthe regime and the opposition before 5 October 2000. See Slobodan Antonic, “5. Oktobai izgladi za demokratizaciju Srbije,” Posebno izdanje, Srbija posle Milosevic, Nova SrpskaPoliticka Misao No. 1 (2001):9–25; Zoran Avramovic, “Zasto je DOS uspeo da pobedi24.9.2000,” ibid., 29–32.

4. External factors have been instrumental, but will not be discussed here. The oppositionand civil society organizations received considerable material and logistical support, aswell as training from Western donors. See Vladimir Goati, “The Nature of the Order andthe October Overthrow in Serbia,” in R/Evolution and Order. Serbia After October 2000,ed. Ivana Spasic and Milan Subotic (Belgrade: Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory,2001), 54.

5. On hybrid authoritarian regimes, see Larry Diamond, “Thinking about Hybrid Regimes,”Journal of Democracy 13 (April 2002): 21–36.

6. On this, see Nick Sitter, “When is a Party System? A Systems Perspective on the Devel-opment of Competitive Party Systems,” Central European Political Science Review 3, 1(2002):75–97.

7. Furthermore, Milosevic had a considerably greater degree of legitimacy through the na-tionalist mobilization of the late 1980s than most other Communist leaders in Yugoslaviaor Central and Eastern Europe. Slobodan Antonic, “Vlada Slobodana Milosevica: Pokusajtipoloskog odredjenja,” Srpksa politicka misao, No. 1 (1995):92–97.

8. Zoran Slavujevic, “Borba za vlastu u Srbiji kroz prizmu izbornih kampanja,” in Izborneborbe u Jugoslaviji (1990–1992), ed. Vladimir Goati, Zoran Dj. Slavujevic, and OgnjenPribicevic (Belgrade: Radnicka Stampa & Institut Drustvenih Nauka, 1993), 84–89.

9. Milan Milosevic, Politicki Vodic kroz Srbiju 2000 (Belgrade: Medija Centar, 2000), 165–67.10. Dijana Vukomanovic, “Nastanak politickih partija,” in Partijski mozaik Srbije, 1990–1996,

ed. Vladimir Goati (Belgrade: Beogradski Krug & AKAPIT, 1997), 29–39.11. The Radical Party never was a full-fledged opposition party. In 1991–92 it was built up with

the help of the regime through positive media reporting and possibly through financialsupport. In 1992–93 the SRS supported a socialist minority government and between 1998and 2000 it joined first the Serbian and later the Yugoslav government and thus became aregime party.

12. Robert Thomas, The Politics of Serbia in the 1990s (New York: Columbia University Press,1999), 52–59.

13. Ognjen Pribicevic, Vlast i opozicjia u Srbiji (Belgrade: B92, 1997).14. Ibid., 54–59.15. Results shown only for the Serbian members of the House of Citizens, the lower chamber

of the parliament.16. In 1992 SPO and DSS both participated together the with Civic Alliance in DEPOS.17. In 1993 SPO, Civic Alliance, and New Democracy formed as the coalition DEPOS.18. In 1996, DS, DSS, SPO, and Civic Alliance formed Zajedno. 1996 SPS ran in coalition with

JUL and New Democracy19. SPS ran in coalition with JUL and New Democracy in the 1997 elections. Both the Demo-

cratic Party and the Democratic Party of Serbia boycotted the elections.20. Vladimir Goati, Izbori u SRJ od 1990. do 1998. Volja Gradjana ili Izborna Manipulacija

(Belgrade: CeSID, 1999), 285–99; idem, Elections in FRY from 1990 to 1998. AddendumElections 2000 (Belgrade: CeSID, 2001), 269–71.

21. The terms moderate and radical opposition are used in the surveys of the Center for PolicyAlternatives in order to differentiate between the DS and the other parties grouped aroundthe Alliance for Change on one side and the SPO and DSS on the other. Srecko Mihailovic,“Politicka i stranacka identifikacija,” in Javno mnenje Srbije. Izme -du razocarenja I nade,ed. Srecko Mihailovic (Belgrade: CPA, 2000), 47.

22. Vreme, Nov. 13, 1999.23. Zoran Kusovac, “Serbia’s Inadequate Opposition,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, July 27,

2000.

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24. The extensive criticism of NATO air strikes by Kostunica, for example, brought him moreattention in the regime media in 1999. This rendered any attacks against him during thepresidential campaign by the regime more difficult, as his nationalist credentials werebeyond doubt. As a result the regime media engaged in personal attacks. Politika, Sept.17–18, 2000.

25. Zeljko Cvijanovic, “Kostunica’s ‘Middle Way,’” IPWR Balkan Report, August 8, 2000;Democratic Party of Serbia, “Why does our party exist? What are our aims? How do weplan to achieve them? Excerpts from the program of the Democratic Party of Serbia”(Belgrade, n.d.), 40–41.

26. Interview with Vojislav Kostunica, July 20, 2000.27. Speech by Vojislav Kostunica at the last DOS pre-election convention, DSS Press Service,

Sept. 20, 2000.28. Political Team 2000, Newsletter 13 (2000).29. Dusan Pavlovic, “Svuda lako, u Srbiji nikako,” Reporter, March 1, 2000.30. CPA Weekly Analysis, May 28, 2000. In early 2000, the prominent Center for Euro-

pean Policy Studies was more optimistic: see Nicholas Whyte “Is the End Nigh? Changeis Possible in Serbia,” CEPS Commentary, Feb. 25, 2000. Also the International Cri-sis Group was somewhat more optimistic and put some the opposition weaknesses inperspective. See International Crisis Group, “Serbia’s Embattled Opposition,” May 30,2000.

31. See Giovanni Satori, Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis (New York:Cambridge University Press, 1976).

32. The disunity of the opposition as a major hurdle in Serbia has been more frequentlyconceded by the opposition leaders themselves. See, for example, the statement of thepresident of Socialdemocracy, Vuk Obradovic, in Danas, June 28, 2000.

33. Only Vesna Pesic of the Civic Alliance resigned voluntarily from her position as party pres-ident in 1999. Djindjic’s takeover of the Democratic Party in 1993 was just one successful“coup” within a party, of which there were many throughout the 1990s.

34. This issue is more complex in the case of Kosovo Albanians, whose political system iscompletely separate from the Serb party system, with no co-operation. In addition, theexclusion from Serbian institutions by the regime, in combination with tolerating the Al-banian parallel state structures, created an situation where both the political elite of KosovoAlbanians and the Serbian regime supported the status quo. See Shkelzen Maliqi, “TheAlbanian Movement in Kosova,” in Yugoslavia and After. A Study in Fragmentation, De-spair and Rebirth, ed. David D. Dyker & Ivan Vejvoda (London & New York: Longman,1996), 147.

35. Blic, Feb. 7, 2000.36. Milan Milosevic, Politicki Vodic kroz Srbiju 2000 (Belgrade: Medija Centar, 2000), 62–64;

International Crisis Group, “Serbia’s Embattled Opposition,” May 30, 2000.37. I have argued elsewhere that there is a need to strive for a broader and less norma-

tive definition of civil society. See Florian Bieber, “The Other Civil Society in Serbia:Non-Governmental Nationalism. The Case of the Serbian Resistance Movement,” in Un-civil Society? Contentious Politics in Post-Communist Europe, ed. Petr Kopecky and CasMudde (London: Routledge, 2003).

38. Stejpan Gredelj, “The (Im)possibility of Establishing Civil Society in Serbia,” in Serbiabetween Past and Future, ed. Dusan Janjic (Belgrade: Institute of Social Sciences & Forumfor Ethnic Relations, 1995), 415.

39. Ernest Gellner, Conditions of Liberty. Civil Society and its Rivals (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1994), 193.

40. See Florian Bieber, Serbischer Nationalismus vom Tode Titos zum Sturz Milosevics (Vienna:Peter Lang, forthcoming, 2003).

41. See Obrad Savic, “Die Parallele Welt. Die Belgrader NGO-Szene,” in VerschwiegenesSerbien. Stimmen fur die Zukunft, ed. Irin Slosar (Klagenfurt: Wieser, 1997), 41–42. Anumber of articles by and on the “other Serbia” have been published in “Une AutreSerbie,” Les Temps Modernes 49, no. 570–571 (1994).

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42. Some additional protests could be mentioned: for example a number of rallies and proteststook place between the end of the Kosovo war and the fall of Milosevic, such as the protestsin response to the closing of Studio B and B292. Milan Milosevic, Politicki vodic kroz Srbiju2000 (Belgrade: Medija Centar, 2000), 58–59.

43. Although the protests in 1996–97 achieved the immediate goal, the recognition of theelectoral success by the regime, the change of the regime failed and the opposition coalitiondissolved. It would be thus misleading to label them successful.

44. On the protests, See Mladen Lazic, ed., Protest in Belgrade (Budapest: CEU Press, 1999).45. For a general study of Otpor, see Vladimir Illic, Otpor. In or Beyond Politics (Belgrade:

Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, 2001).46. The university law, in return, was a response of the regime to the student protests in

1996–97. See Sreten Vujovic, “The Society, State and University in Crisis,” Sociologija 60(October-December 1997):481–507.

47. Otpor for example distributed “medals” to Belgrade citizens after the regime beganto honor “heroes” of the Kosovo war. For further examples see http://www.otpor.net;http://www.otpor.com.

48. The usage of the clenched fist as a symbol consciously evokes fascist/communist symbology,reminiscent of the Slovene band Laibach and the “Neue Slowenische Kunst” (New SloveneArt) movement, which used similar techniques in the early 1980s in Slovenia. See MarkThompson, A Paper House. The Ending of Yugoslavia (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992),43–44.

49. Interviews with the Otpor activists Slobodan Homen (July 21, 2000) and Milja Jovanovic(July 25, 2000).

50. Otpor, “Declaration on the future of Serbia,” August 25, 1999; “Kongres StudentskogPokreta Otpor: Ostao je bljutav ukus,” Republika, March 5, 2000, 36.

51. See http://www.cesid.org.yu.52. Misa Brkic,“Some Other Serbia: Group G 17 Plus,” AIM Podgorica, June 28, 2000.53. Glas Nedelje, October 19, 1999; Blic, July 19, 2000; Danas, April 15–16, 2000.54. For a list of all the NGOs active in the campaign, see Izlaz 2000. Nevladine organizacije

za demokratske i fer izbori (Belgrade: Fond Centar za demokratiju & Centar za razvojneprofitni sektora & Gradjanske inicijative, 2001), 30–52.

55. This has been a particular challenge. While in other countries that saw the end of a semi-authoritarian regime, such as Slovakia and Croatia, voter participation in itself provedto be sufficient, Serbian experience with the electoral fraud in 1996 demonstrated theneed for protests and other civil action to supplement the simple process of voting for theopposition.

56. This campaign was called “Vreme je” (It’s time). See http://www.vreme-je.net.57. Beta, July 28, 2000. In addition, Kostunica also attracted less hostile responses than many

other opposition figures, such as Zoran Djindjic. See interview with Djindjic in Danas,August 26–27, 2000.

58. For a detailed analysis, see Dejan Guzina, Nationalism in the Context of an Illiberal Multi-nation State: the Case of Serbia, Ph.D. diss, Carleton University, Ottawa, January 2000.

59. The opposition agreement concluded in January 2000 was still a reflection of this. Betaweek,January 13, 2000.

60. G17plus, “Program Demokratske Opozicije Srbije za Demokratsku Srbiju” (Belgrade,2000).

61. Additionally, Western donors and governments also have been instrumental in forging aunited opposition.

62. One member of G17, Miroljub Labus, for example, became deputy prime minister ofYugoslavia, while the former executive director of the organization heads the CentralBank.

63. See for example NDI, Serbia Issue Poll, October 24, 1999.

The Serbian Opposition and Civil Society: Roots of the Delayed Transition in Serbia

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