Serbian Radicals

Serbian Radicals "will not bring down" government - Seselj
Beta - October 2, 2000

Belgrade, 30th September: Vojislav Seselj, chairman of the Serbian Radical Party and Serbian deputy prime minister, said that the Sunday [24th September] elections were "basically irregular" and added that the SRS would not bring down the Serbian government.

On Friday evening, Seselj was a guest on Belgrade TV Palma, where he said that the 24th September elections were "basically irregular" and added that he did not trust the Federal Election Commission [SIK], the Constitutional Court or the entire Yugoslav judiciary.

Listing the reasons for the irregularity of the elections, Seselj mentioned the "irregularity of the election campaign", the "misuse of the police", that is, the "harassment and arrests of SRS activists" during the election campaign, the confiscation of propaganda material and pressure against the party's candidates to give up their candidacies.

Seselj said that the most important piece of evidence was the fact that, "even today, the exact number of polling stations is not known".

He said that, prior to the elections, SIK member Jelica Bakovic had inspected the election commission of the Vranje electoral unit and had not received a list of voting stations for the Kosovo-Metohija municipalities and that the police had thrown Dragan Milovanovic, permanent member of the election commission of the Prokuplje electoral unit, out of the building in which the commission was in session.

Seselj said that Bakovic and Nikola Dinic had been thrown out of the SIK between Sunday and Monday, because they were suspected of being SRS members. He said that the SRS would file complaints with the Constitutional Court. Although he knows from experience that these would be rejected, he would like to see to what extent the judges "can put up with moral humiliation, considering the fact that they are working against their conscience".

Seselj said that the street protests and the call for a general strike initiated by the Democratic Opposition of Serbia [DOS] were a legal form of political battle and added that it was "smart" that the police had not reacted nor been in the streets in large numbers.

He said that the police "did not even" have to go out into the streets, unless "national property is destroyed or human lives are threatened". He added that "greater tolerance" would be needed in order to avoid bloodshed.

The SRS chairman said that the only method would have been to file complaints with the SIK and the Constitutional Court, providing these institutions were "respectable".

"The most honourable and correct people and lawyers should be in the SIK. However, it is obvious that this is not the case, since Nikola Dinic and Jelica Bakovic would otherwise not have been thrown out of the Federal Assembly building (where the SIK is located)," Seselj said, and added that the permanent SIK members, apart from the two who were thrown out, had been "disqualified from doing this job for life". He accused the "[ruling] leftist parties" of intentionally making the elections irregular through the SIK and added that "many should go to jail".

Seselj reiterated that the republican Law on Information had been annulled, since they "did not want to use it against 'Politika', 'Vecernje Novosti' and 'Borba'. He said that the SRS would not bring down the Serbian government, because it is also in the government.

"Our goal is not to have the government fall at any price, to then have republic elections and to be erased by this DOS torrent," Seselj said, and added that the SRS found it more suitable if a certain period of time passed, that the people sober up and see the first results of DOS rule.

According to Seselj, the SRS would make relations with the leftist parties in the Serbian government "harsher" and bring up some proposals directly at the assembly sessions, without previous consultations in the government. He reiterated that Interior Minister Vlajko Stojiljkovic "has to go"...

BBC Summary of World Broadcasts
Source: Beta news agency, Belgrade, in Serbo-Croat 0749 gmt 2 Oct 00

SECTION: Part 2 Central Europe, the Balkins; FORMER YUGOSLAVIA; FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA; FEDERAL/SERBIAN LEADERSHIP; EE/D3962/C