Barkley,
The President of Yugoslavia is elected as is the Yugoslav
assembly which has approximately the same powers vis-a-vis the
two constituent republics as the old Yugoslav govt had with respect
to the 6 republics. (The difference is that the president is elected at
large and is not a 'presidency' i.e rotating collective as it was under
the old system.) The president can only serve I believe for one (or
is it two) terms. In any case, Milosevic was the first president of
Yugoslavia and could not run in the last election. His party ran a
Milosevic associate (I forget his name) who was elected president
while Milosevic ran for president of Serbia, which he won with the
majority you mentioned (see below).
When I was last in Beograd and discussing these issues and
the inflation and monetary policy with economists in Serbia I was
told that within the urban, middleclass, professional and intellectual
class circles, Milosevic was quite unpopular (hence the opinion of
the lady I forwarded from Sid's post). However, his political and
electoral strength is among the rural peasant and working class
people who still look up to a strong leader -- a new Tito. You will
also note that in the other posting about Vuk Draskovic, he rose to
influence on a right-wing nationalist appeal, only to be outflanked
on the right-nationalist wing by Seselj. I have good Serbian friends
who were 'ethnically cleansed' twice from Kosovo by the Albanians
who, though moderately left-liberals here, are pro-Seselj in
Yugoslavia precisely because they have been/feel they have been
oppressed by the Albanian minority in Yugoslavia.
But I am straying from your question. To the best of my
knowledge, Kosovo and Vojvodina are represented in the Yugoslav
parliament but not as autonomous provinces, only as regional
constituency representatives (in the same sense as
congresspersons from Vermont or any other state are
representated in Congress.)
Have I answered all your questions?
Paul
Paul Phillips,
Economics,
University of Manitoba
From: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [PEN-L:6162] Re: (Fwd) Letter from Belgrade
Date sent: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 13:22:54 -0400
Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Paul,
> Hmmm. This woman has a name that
> is very similar to that of His Excellency's wife.
> But, more seriously I would ask you if you could
> really clarify the nature of the current political
> system in Yugoslavia. This is triggered by this
> letter writer's lament that she (and her friends)
> did not elect this government. But there clearly
> are quite a few elections in Yugoslavia, even if
> His Excellency tried to resist the results of some
> local ones a few years ago. Clearly the repeated
> labeling by NATO of His Excellency as a "dictator"
> is seriously inaccurate. Some specific questions:
> 1) Is there a Yugoslavia-wide parliament? I
> know that Serbia and Montenegro have their own
> parliaments. I know that the Albanians in Kosmet
> have largely boycotted those elections. I know that
> the breakdown in the Serbian parliament is that 115
> are either in His Excellency's party or his wife's party,
> that about 80 are in the right-wing chauvinist party of
> Seselj and about 40 or so are in Draskovic's party.
> I don't think Djindic's party (His Excellency's most
> severe "liberal" critic") has any.
> 2) How is the Yugoslav president selected? Is
> there a nationwide election or is he appointed by some
> body? If the latter, who is that body?
> 3) If there is no nationwide parliament, what is
> the national level governing body. I am aware that there
> is both a Serbian bureaucracy and a parallel Yugoslav
> bureaucracy in Belgrade.
> 4) How are the republican presidents selected?
> By the republican parliaments?
> Hope that you or somebody can clear this up.
> Barkley Rosser
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Wednesday, April 28, 1999 5:09 PM
> Subject: [PEN-L:6125] (Fwd) Letter from Belgrade
>
>
>
> ------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
> Date sent: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 16:36:52 -0700
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> From: Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Letter from Belgrade
>
> Subject: Letter from Belgrade
> Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999
> From: Marija Marjanovic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: My side of the story
>
> Hello everyone! I am student from Architectural Faculty,
> University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia. I spent great time in Porto
> Alegre by the end of the year 1997.
> Some terrible things are happening to me and my people (Serbs)
> and I wanted to tell you my side of the story.
> My people is in a very bad position: on one side, there is our
> government that absolutely does not care about anything except
> about how to save their own positions. We don't support this
> government. Belgrade (the capital) did not vote for them. Not to
> mention that we are under media blockade for very, very long time,
> and that our elections were never fair. In one word - this
> government WAS NOT OUR CHOICE.
> On the other side there is USA (NATO forces), which is
> determined to ruin everything that stands on its way. Do you really
> believe that they are concerned about human rights and things like
> that ? The real reason for their actions are: strategic positions
> (spreading to the eastern part of Europe, and making "conflict
> areas" in the middle of Europe in order to retain stronger than
> European Community) as well as economy reasons (spreading the
> market and selling the old weapons).
> Did you know that they are bombing us with radioactive
> materials which are secondary products of their nuclear industry?
> Did you know, that during the war in Bosnia (country next to
> Yugoslavia), USA bombarded this territory and that women from
> this areas have defected babies born today? Do you still believe that
> they are fighting for human rights?
> We are in terrible position. If they are fighting only against our
> government why are they attacking civilians? Do we really need this
> aggression? Don't they have any other way to persuade our
> president to negotiate? Do we, civilians, have to suffer because of
> wrong government on one side and aggressive ways of USA to
> realize their strategic and economic goals on the other?
> We only want to live our lives normally. To work, have fun,
> have families, have healthy children. We are normal people that is
> very tired of everything that is going on here in the last ten years.
> Please, help us, by spreading our side of the story all over the
> world. Tell this to your friends in Brazil and in the other countries.
> Anything that you do can be helpful.
> Help us only by thinking. Remember, this can happen to any
> poor nation. World should not be a jungle.
> Thank You for Your time.
>
> Truly,
>
> Marija Marjanovic
>
>
[PEN-L:6188] Re: Re: (Fwd) Letter from Belgrade
ts99u-1.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.224] Thu, 29 Apr 1999 17:24:02 -0500
