There is no oppositional democratic party that could form a government instead of the Democratic Party (DS) in the next elections. (The DS is democratic, but here you can call any party which doesn’t have individual or mass liquidations in its program or practice – democratic.) Therefore, the DS has no serious democratic counterbalance. Boris Tadic then comes across as some Serbian 21^st century Kemal Atatürk. However, Turkey under Atatürk could not be democratized because of the painful domestic issues which it never could resolve. Without the closure of those great issues in the 20^th century, Turkey is facing major problems at the beginning of the 21^st century.

Serbia also cannot be completely democratized, because it did not resolve the issue of its recent past and its overall political culture. Those issues are – relations with its neighbors, with all the minorities, from religious to political to sexual. Those are very serious issues, which cannot be resolved by only one party with a democratic capacity. Furthermore, the Democratic Party is in a coalition with the SPS. On the other hand, you now have two Radical parties, each of whom will look for a way of continuing to develop. Instead of the one Radical party completely disappearing – it doubled. Immediately after this happened came the disgraceful commentaries of political analysts regarding one of the leaders of the Radicals, the one that broke away, saying how he is a pro-European oriented, almost liberal politician.

Fact is that a government formed by the Radicals, the DSS and the SPS would have produced a long-term political and economic disaster. Just look how these guys from DS are botching up, and you can imagine what Radicals would do. So the whole system is waiting for those women in the parliament to finish shooting their mouths off, until they are done cursing and anathemizing, and it could go on forever. Each day a child in Belgrade or Pacevo dies from air pollution because of this parliamentary obstruction.

As for the LPD, I hope it keeps growing. For me it became, unfortunately, a one man band. Technique – naah, artistic value – even worse. I cannot support certain decisions they reached, especially in the parliament. As it turns out, Natasa Micic was good enough for Zoran Djindjic, but not good enough for the LDP to make her vice-president of the parliament, and now that position is occupied by a person who didn’t even reach the electoral quota in the local elections. Our results in the local elections are an indication of an unsound condition in the party’s organization, and precisely because of that the party cannot implement the program of reforms which it stands for. I suppose that is what you were asking me about, and that this is something of interest to our listeners, not what is going on with me. That is to say, what is going on with a political organization which was founded three and a half years ago, when we began working on this project.

From 1989, when the Democratic Party was founded to the late 1993, Zoran Djindjic succeeded in reforming this sclerotic and disparate organization, in putting it in motion, giving it energy to get 20 deputies to the parliament. And this organization was able to win, together with the SPO and the Civic Alliance, in the local elections in 1996. Unfortunately, I don’t think that the LDP is heading in that direction right now. This is probably due to tremendous pressures by the system as a whole, which somehow forced the LDP to adjust, instead of keep changing it and influence those values to adjust to the modern European civilization. We ran in this elections and I don’t think our voters got what they voted for. In politics, you can lie and steel and do dishonorable things, your personal life may differ from the values you stand for publicly, but you can only deceive your voters once. You cannot do that several times. Accepting responsibility is our political priority, but that should also include us, all of us in the LDP.

People are tired here, not only because of the unbearable living conditions, but also because of the non-existence of the political structure which would represent their political needs. You are lost in the political space there, you are deprived of your political representatives in a district, in a province, in a city and in the republic. Most voters don’t feel like there really is anyone representing them, and I don’t differentiate between the voters there – I think that is true for voters of the LDP and the Radicals and the Democrats. Political parties and political officials are alienated from the electorate and that is why people are so tired.

Pescanik, Radio B92, 20.06.08.
Translated by Ivica Pavlovic