Power Struggle Deepens as Kostunica Takes Oath

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia —  Clearly humbled by the weight of the moment, Vojislav Kostunica was sworn in as Yugoslavia’s new president Saturday while a bare-knuckled struggle for power intensified behind the scenes.

Although a popular uprising forced Kostunica’s predecessor, Slobodan Milosevic, to concede an election defeat, it didn’t guarantee that Kostunica will have the authority his supporters say he needs to make sure Milosevic and his cronies lose their muscle.

The constitution gives Kostunica, who prides himself on following the letter of the law, little power over this divided country. As he tries to consolidate his “democratic revolution,” he risks following too closely in the footsteps of Milosevic, whose “anti-bureaucratic revolution” brought him to power after a similar wave of protests in 1987.

The sudden collapse of Milosevic’s regime was surprisingly bloodless, but Kostunica’s supporters fear that the worst dangers might lie ahead as they try to negotiate their way through Yugoslavia’s political labyrinth and form a stable government.

After swearing to “contribute to the realization of freedoms and rights of people and citizens,” Kostunica addressed a joint session of Yugoslavia’s federal parliament Saturday night.

“To me, it appears that everything that has been happening is a dream, but a dream which is true when I wake up,” Kostunica said.

He expressed the hope that Yugoslavs can enter a new era with the realization “that by not agreeing on many things, we agree on one thing--that our interest is the well-being of the country we live in.”

“If there is something this nation lacks after all the tests, and after all the suffering, all the hardship, it is peace and calm in the most basic sense of the words,” Kostunica told the assembled lawmakers, adding: “The tests we have been through in this past month or more are big, but the tests facing us are new trials. But after this truly important historic moment, I am convinced that we will be able to deal with them in a proper way.”

Kostunica promised to bring his country “back into the international community,” but only under the condition that Yugoslavia make its return “standing up and with dignity,” with its sovereignty over the Serbian province of Kosovo fully respected.

As leader of the Socialist Party of Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic, Milosevic was invited to attend Kostunica’s swearing-in, but he did not. Many of Kostunica’s supporters suspect that Milosevic is determined to retain an influence on Serbian politics.

Only “some units” of the Serbian police are loyal to Kostunica, Zarko Korac, a leader in the 18-party coalition that brought Kostunica to power last week, said in an interview Saturday.

“Most of us in the opposition” are at risk of being killed, and the orders would come from “the people in charge of the Serbian police,” warned Korac, considered one of the most levelheaded politicians backing Kostunica.

Police Virtually Nowhere to Be Seen

Meanwhile, police had all but disappeared Saturday from most districts of Belgrade, the capital of both Yugoslavia and Serbia, leaving many here to wonder whether officers are afraid to show their faces or deliberately trying to sabotage the transition to democracy.

Looters have stripped shelves clean in dozens of shops, most of them during celebrations of Milosevic’s downfall Friday night, and there was no one to stop them despite Kostunica’s appeals for the police to resume their duties.

Without the police to depend on, Kostunica has nothing but “the support of people in the streets,” Korac said.

Most control over Serbia’s institutions, such as the police, still lies firmly in the hands of the republic’s parliament, which is dominated by a left-wing coalition headed by Milosevic’s Socialist Party.

One of his party’s allies in the Serbian parliament is the Yugoslav Left party, headed by Milosevic’s wife and closest advisor, Mirjana Markovic. She is expected to take a seat as a member of parliament when it meets Monday.

The same parties, in a loose coalition with the Socialist People’s Party of the smaller Yugoslav republic, Montenegro, also control the newly elected federal parliament, and they didn’t look set to skulk off into the shadows at their first meeting Saturday.

One prominent new member of parliament is Zoran Andjelkovic, who once ran Kosovo for Milosevic. Andjelkovic was the highest official in Kosovo when Serbian forces were allegedly committing widespread atrocities before withdrawing after 78 days of North Atlantic Treaty Organization airstrikes last year.

Another member is Gorica Gajevic. She sat beside Milosevic last week when he announced his fateful decision to press ahead with a runoff election after Kostunica maintained that he had won an outright victory in the Sept. 24 vote.

But Korac insisted that “nobody in Serbia supports the Socialist Party,” and added: “I think they are going toward disintegration.”

For opposition figure Korac, it was an encouraging sign that he could have lunch Saturday with Serbian Interior Minister Vlajko Stojiljkovic, who commands the republic’s most dreaded police units. Stojiljkovic has been indicted for alleged war crimes in Kosovo along with Milosevic. Korac said that the interior minister had ordered his forces to kill opposition leaders but that the police refused to carry out those orders.

“The one who gave orders that we be killed is now sitting in the same chamber with me,” Korac said of his lunch meeting. “We got reports from police that they were instructed to kill us.”

Customs Chief Ordered to Resign

Kostunica’s supporters--in one of their most significant moves against Milosevic’s cronies so far--walked into the federal customs headquarters Friday and ordered customs chief Mihalj Kertes to resign.

“That was a mistake,” Korac acknowledged, and then promised: “We’re going to do it differently [from now on].”

In a country where smuggling everything from cigarettes to gasoline is one of the few ways to get rich, the person in charge of enforcing the customs laws is one of the government’s most powerful officials.

But despite claims that Kostunica is a “legalist,” the move violated the constitution, which does not give him the authority to decide who runs the customs department.

The federal finance minister is the only person with the legal power to dismiss and appoint the head of customs, and when a new Cabinet is formed, that is what will happen, Korac said.

Kostunica is one of the few politicians in Serbia with a clean record of honesty and integrity, which was crucial to mobilizing popular support for the ouster of Milosevic. The way Kertes was summarily fired, and the choice of his replacement, are just two more examples of the many problems Kostunica will face as he tries to build a democracy after 13 years of kleptocratic Milosevic rule.

He got rid of Kertes only to name Dusan Zabunovic his temporary successor. Zabunovic has links to Milosevic’s son, Marko, probably Serbia’s biggest smuggler, who is suspected of waging ruthless turf wars against rivals in Serbia’s violent criminal underworld.

The bloodshed reached Greece early Saturday, as Vladimir Bokan, a prominent figure in Serbian organized crime, was shot to death outside his home in an Athens suburb.

Bokan, who was under investigation for money laundering and smuggling gasoline and arms, was Milosevic’s friend and a business associate, Associated Press reported from Athens.

With Milosevic out of power, his son apparently thought it was a good time to leave Belgrade with his family. He packed up and flew to Moscow on Saturday with his wife, Zorica, and their son, Marko Jr., on a regularly scheduled Yugoslav Airlines flight, the country’s independent Beta news agency reported.

In Saturday’s interview, Korac also described details of the meeting the previous day between Milosevic and Kostunica, which may have marked the last, painful gasp of Milosevic’s regime.

Korac said that Kostunica, an expert in constitutional law, listened to Milosevic claim that he would be president until his mandate expired next July, and then replied: “I don’t think so, sir. Not according to my knowledge of the law.”

The mood at the meeting was “terrible,” Korac added.

But, he said, Kostunica observed: “For now, it is more than enough that Milosevic congratulated me.”

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Past Presidents

1945-1980

Marshal Tito

Became prime minister in March 1945, was elected president under a new constitution in 1953. President of the Republic and of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia until he died in 1980.

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1980s

Changed yearly

During the 1980s, federal state presidency and presidency of the party Presidium rotated annually among eight members--representatives of Yugoslavia’s six republics and two provinces.

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1989-1991

Borisav Jovic

Elected to 5-year term of the presidential collegium by popular vote of the constituencies, rather than by earlier procedure. Jovic resigned in March 1991

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June-Dec. 1991

Stipe Mesic

Former Croatian prime minister Mesic elevated to meaningless post of federal president. He resigned in December, stating “Yugoslavia no longer exists.”

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1989-2000

Slobodan Milosevic

Became president of Serbia in 1989.

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Watson is a staff writer. Cirjakovic is a special correspondent.