Let us imagine what would happen if the opposition were to win the elections. There is another way to phrase this question: what do we expect the current opposition to do if they become the government tomorrow (and the elections really are practically tomorrow)? Would we do the same as we did to the winners of the 2000 elections – allow them to fall into the gap between our wishes and their (actual) possibilities? By (actual) possibilities, I do not mean the individual and collective capacities of each actor of the process. I mean the circumstances under which they would (potentially) come to power.
I need to make a couple of disclaimers here immediately: first, elections have been announced at three levels – local, provincial, and national. The opposition does not have an equal chance at each of those levels. National and provincial power could well remain outside their reach. However, they should win in Belgrade. Therefore, our expectations should differ significantly for each of these three levels.
Second, the opposition is not a homogeneous block. Expecting something from the opposition means expecting something from individuals and groups that are fundamentally different from each other.
Thirdly, winning in Belgrade and other municipalities, without winning power at the national level, significantly limits the opposition’s ability to make significant changes, at least in Belgrade, and elsewhere, if everything turns out as it should.
With that said, we should be careful with our expectations. And, consequently, the opposition should be careful with their promises. Now that I’ve made all these disclaimers, let’s indulge our imaginations.
1. The opposition wins at all levels
The neo-Radicals remain in power only in municipalities which didn’t hold elections. But, this is not enough to threaten the new government. The bigger danger is posed by their people placed within the system to undermine it, just like what happened after 2000. Anyone hoping for some new attempt to implement/satisfy transitional justice must remember 2000 and immediately suppress that hope. This opposition, if it comes to power, will not have the institutional capacity to implement anything remotely resembling this.
Which does not mean that wanting transitional justice is unreasonable. On the contrary, everything we have seen after 2000, and especially from 2012 onwards, shows that Serbia desperately needs transitional justice. However, in 2023/24, denialist narratives about the nineties are even stronger and more deeply embedded in the ideological apparatus of the state. Dealing with the neo-Radicals, calling them to account only for everything that happened after 2012, wouldn’t change anything and would only temporarily postpone another restoration of the old regime.
It’s not just that the people from the old regime (both the one from the nineties and the current neo-Radical one) are all over the institutions without which transitional justice measures cannot be implemented. Nor is it just the fact that the pro-European opposition is not too interested in the truth about the nineties. The point is that the pro-European opposition cannot win the elections without the so-called state-building opposition. And yes, it is a new version of the story about Djindjic and Kostunica. If things turn out that way, we will again witness everything we’ve already seen in the first ten years after 2000. The so-called state-building opposition is all wrapped up in nationalist narratives from the nineties.
Conclusion: let’s forget about transitional justice and (symbolically, because transitional justice is usually merely symbolic) punishing the old regime. Promises that the new government will deal with corruption and stop further destruction of institutions are shaky at best: the roots of corruption date back to the 1990s. If they don’t cut them there, little will be achieved. It is uncertain whether present-day right-wing parties (it is difficult to call them state-builders because we’ve seen many times that people with their ideas only destroy states) would agree with even the mildest measure of transitional justice – lustration. Even if only to rectify what happened after 2012.
Perhaps the only realistic promise would be that the new government would not steal as much as the previous one did. And we would have to settle for that.
2. The opposition wins local elections in Belgrade and a few other places, maybe even provincial elections, since we’re fantasizing
In this case, everything written above still stands, except that the circumstances are even worse for the opposition. Serbia is a strictly centralized state. There can be little fundamental change at local levels, without the consent of the national authorities. Which does not mean that nothing can be changed. Local authorities still have relatively independent access to certain amounts of funding. It will be up to the new local authorities to decide how to allocate that funding. Health, education, social policies – the current opposition could do a lot there. But that’s basically the extent of it. In addition, the conclusion about theft I made above also applies here. It’s the best we can do.
***
Having in mind these modest wishes, do we even still have a strong incentive to vote on December 17? Let’s look at Poland, for example. After eight years of rule of the radical nationalist Law and Justice party, the opposition recently managed to win the elections and form a coalition that has a majority in the new Polish parliament. When all procedures are completed, that coalition will form a new government, which is expected to cleanse the country of the legacy of the eight-year rule of Law and Justice. Expectations are specifically related to the media, judiciary, cultural institutions and national history. More or less, just like in Serbia.
However, in Poland, members of the opposition coalition are closer to each other compared to our potential coalition between the right and the center (because the pro-European coalition is the center at best, with barely a hint of a lean to the left), which is necessary to remove the neo-Radicals from power. Therefore, the Polish post-election scenario is not very useful for understanding the situation in Serbia.
Yes, we would like for the national narratives to change here, for us to start behaving in accordance with the truth we have accepted (for example, with the Parliamentary Declaration on Srebrenica), for the media, schools, and institutions to stop denying that truth. However, it won’t happen. What we can and must ask for and expect, if the opposition wins the elections at any level, can only concern the material aspects of life in Serbia – that people live better, that schools and hospitals look decent, that people in power don’t steal as much as they do now. And things like that. Getting carried away with changes in the judiciary makes no sense. That requires a consensus, which is highly unlikely at the moment. But if the government’s pressure on prosecutors and judges weakens, that’s not nothing. The same goes for the media.
Is this too little? After thirty years of decline, with one short break at the beginning of the 2000s, do we really believe that things can change overnight? October 6 was an illusion even after October 5. And it is especially delusional to expect it to happen after December 17. But any victory of the opposition in these elections is a step towards normality in Serbia. All that the opposition can promise before the upcoming elections is a break from the madness of the neo-Radicals, a somewhat more decent life, somewhat more decent institutions, less pressure on the judiciary and the media. Until the next elections, at least. Until one day we maybe reach the constitutional assembly – for which we are already thirty years too late.
Translated by Marijana Simić
Peščanik.net, 01.12.2023.
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