After three decades of renewed multi-party system, the same issues are being discussed – Politics

After three decades of multi-party system, Serbia is at the beginning again.

Photo: EPA / SRDJAN SUKI

The public and the opposition are once again grappling with media freedom and equal electoral conditions, which they dealt with in 1990, when the first multi-party elections were held in Serbia, political scientist and expert Danas Cvijetin Milivojevic told in public relations. but also the disappearance of the Serbian political scene from the founding of the first political parties until today.

The first direct multi-party elections for the President of Serbia and members of the National Assembly were held on December 9 and 23, 1990. Slobodan Milosevic, the candidate of the Socialist Party of Serbia, won them with a convincing majority of 65.34 percent. of the votes.

His party obtained 46.09 percent of the support.

Thirty years later, the Serbian Progressive Party won 60.65 percent of the elections on June 21, 2020, while its leader, Aleksandar Vučić, won 55.08 percent of the votes in the presidential elections three years earlier. .

Taking into account the growing support of the SNS from year to year and its organization in the field, the control of public services and the media with national frequency from 2012 until now, as well as the little support but also the disorganization of the opposition whose voice cannot be heard by the majority of the population, complete domination of the progressives can be claimed in every way, even in terms of a return to one-party rule.

– Now we are at the beginning and again at zero point. In fact, we are in zero point energy. It is as if the 30 years that we have behind us have been thrown away. We deal with the same issues, freedom of the media and equal elections, the conditions that we faced before the first multi-party elections in 1990. After three decades of multi-party elections and so many election cycles, we saw the EC say in its progress report on European integration that Serbia was not politically pluralism. In fact, we are at the beginning again, says Milivojevic.

Remember the tweet by Viola von Cramon, member of the European Parliament, who, according to her court, is the spokesperson for the EP’s position towards Serbia, and who wrote that there are no electoral conditions or press freedoms in Serbia.

When asked how things will play out in the future, Milivojevic replied that it is not up to us.

– Is there anything more humiliating for a country that claims to be on the European path and has been holding free and democratic elections for 30 years, ask for the help of an external referee who will mediate the conversation between the government and the opposition? Is that something this government should be proud of? This government is actually asking someone from abroad to do something that the government could have done on its own last year before the elections announced on June 21. Implement the laws and allow equal participation and access to the media for all electoral candidates. The government did not want to do that, but twice faked a dialogue, first about the FPN and then with the mediation of European parliamentarians. It is simply incredible that someone who wants to join the EU cannot stand alone with something that is respect for their own laws, which are not bad. Vučić now only has one way out, which according to him can be profitable. And that is accepting all the normal conditions of the opposition, which are taken for granted in every normal country, and without which the opposition will not go to the polls – explains Milivojevic.

The former president of the Civic Alliance of Serbia, Vesna Pesic, stated that 30 years after the introduction of multi-party pluralism, Serbia has returned to autocracy and a one-party system of government, as it was between 1945 and 1990.

Pesic told Beta news agency that Serbia has had different political and democratic periods in the last three decades, but that the last eight years of Aleksandar Vucic’s rule have returned Serbia to autocracy and the one-party system.

“We have not managed to maintain a multi-party system. We do not have any major opposition parties.” In the 1990s, we had large opposition parties and the opposition politicians were people of confidence who were respected and loved by the people. ” Pesic said.

According to her, the opposition parties had serious political power at the beginning of the multiparty system and during the 1990s, and that after October 5 democratic institutions were formed and free elections were held, but all that, as she said, lasted little bit.

“Since 2012, when the SNS came to power, everything has started to collapse. We no longer have elections, but a boycott of the elections. The media is under the complete domination of the SNS, and society has gone from a multi-party system to a one-party system, “said Pesic.

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