GLOSSARY

Since all of the Eastern Europe, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, introduced multiparty systems and held their first democratic elections, one-party regime in Serbia had to conform to this tendency. But to delay possible changes and to postpone the election, the government suggested that before the first democratic election it was necessary to change the Constitution.

The opposition at first insisted on the election for Constitutional Parliament which would adopt completely new Constitution. Even a round-table discussion on this topic was held between the government and the opposition. The chairman of the discussion Dusan Mihajlovic, the vice-president of the Republic Executive Council (the former official term for the government), managed to convince the SPO and the DS to participate in the election under questionable conditions and without prior Constitutional changes. Members of the Democratic Party dissatisfied by this outcome later founded the SLS.

Because of the war in Bosnia, the UN imposed trade sanctions on the newly formed Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and that provoked waves of student and citizen protests against the regime. These protests forced Milosevic to schedule early general elections.

To satisfy the international community as well as the Serbian opposition, Milosevic brought American businessman Milan Panic to the country to be appointed federal prime minister with the task to form the government of the national unity - the government with members from the regime as well as from the opposition. Additionally, the Federal Parliament appointed Dobrica Cosic, a dissident from the old communist system, as federal president.

The opposition succeeded in changing the electoral system to proportional system with nine election districts, but it was also necessary for the democratic opposition to establish its strategy: joining forces against the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and uniting in one ballot - the Democratic Movement of Serbia (DEPOS). The Democratic Party refused to join in (members of the DS that did join DEPOS later formed the Democratic Party of Serbia), the SPS with the help of the SRS did not loose the power in the election and Panic as well as Cosic were soon dismissed from their positions.

After the political stability that brought the coalition government in 1994, the opposition formed the coalition "Zajedno" for 1996 federal and local elections as an attempt to overcome the quarrels and differences between the parties in opposition and to change the regime of Slobodan Milosevic. The coalition consisted of the SPO, the DS and the Civic Alliance of Serbia (GSS).

Just before the elections, the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) and the Democratic Center (DC) also joined the coalition "Zajedno" and Dragoslav Avramovic was elected leader of the coalition. Mr. Avramovic, the former president of the National Bank of Yugoslavia, symbolized the monetary stability after the 1993 hyperinflation. Unfortunately, under still unexplained conditions, Avramovic made a strong blow to the opposition leaving the coalition just a couple of days before the election day.

The coalition "Zajedno" won the largest number of votes for the opposition yet (almost 1 million), but still lost the federal election due to the proportional electoral system with a large number of election districts. But, due to the two-round plurality electoral system, the coalition won local elections in about 20 biggest cities in Serbia, including Belgrade, Nis, Novi Sad and Kragujevac. The regime annulled the electoral results in these municipalities but that provoked large and lasting student and citizen protests which forced Milosevic to recognize the coalition's electoral victory by decreeing "Lex Specialis".

Unfortunately, the coalition did not survive until the 1997 republic election because of the struggle between Djindjic and Draskovic for the opposition leadership and the presidential candidacy. The parties in coalition signed the agreement by which Draskovic was the coalition's presidential candidate, but because of the success of the protests that lasted over 100 days, Djindjic wanted to broaden the coalition with other political parties and citizens' associations. Vesna Pesic (the leader of the GSS) devoted herself to finding "Serbian Havel" (Vaclav Havel was the president of former Czechoslovakia after the fall of communism), but Draskovic refused to accept any of these and accused Djindjic of the secret cooperation with the regime.

The coalition finally broke apart in the summer of 1997. The DS, the GSS and the DSS boycotted the September 1997 election, and the SPO failed to win enough votes that would secure the party the majority in the Serbian Parliament. After the marathon negotiations on the SPO joining the government, the SPS and the SRS formed the so called "war" government in March 1998 that started the Kosovo war, passed dictatorial laws (the Information Law and the Law on University) and managed to draw Serbia in the war against the whole world.