The New York Times

August 22, 1999

It's Good to Be the president

HOW MILOSEVIC SURVIVES IN SERBIA

By Steven ERLANGER

BELGRADE, Serbia - Last September, when Bob Dole, the former Presidential candidate, and John Shattuck, an American human rights official, came here to press Slobodan Milosevic to relent in Kosovo, the Yugoslav President put on quite a performance.

He rejected charges of Serb abuses of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, of course, and then, acting offended, had an aide shut the doors leading to a dining room already set for lunch. Just before Mr. Dole and Mr. Shattuck left, unfed, Mr. Milosevic leaned forward and said emphatically, in his good English, "You know, I enjoy being President."

No one doubts him. Nor do they underestimate his tactical skills to keep the job.

Defeated by NATO in Kosovo, wanted for trial on war crimes and facing a restive constituency, Mr. Milosevic will not give up the job easily. Remaining President is surely safest place for Mr. Milosevic to be.

Having survived more than 80 days of massive street protests against him in the winter of 1996-97 and 78 days of NATO bombing last spring, Mr. Milosevic is doing his best to manipulate and discredit a divided opposition.

His efforts are falling, as ever here, on rich ground. The first opposition rally in Belgrade, on Thursday night, drew tens of thousands of people demanding his resignation. But the rally also displayed and intensified the already poisonous splits in the opposition between the Democratic Party of Zoran Djindjic and the Serbian Renewal Movement of Vuk Draskovic.

It is indisputable that Mr. Milosevic is in deep trouble. His regime has been shaken; a few of his acolytes are breaking away; there is no longer enough money, given war damage and international isolation, to keep his network of favored business allies happy.

There are worries about a winter without enough heat, electricity and fuel for transportation, and about an economy, already in deep recession, bombed into a sort of pre-industrial stage by NATO, without enough real jobs.

After 10 years in power, Mr. Milosevic's support is at its lowest point. He and his Government, never wildly popular, are reviled by large portions of the nation. Serbs are tired of empty promises, patriotic hyperbole and failed wars that leave Serbia smaller and more isolated, its people poorer and its future bleaker.

Some opinion polls suggest that the main opposition party, Mr. Draskovic's party would win more votes than the parties of Mr. Milosevic and his wife, Mirjana Markovic, combined. According to one recent poll, Mr. Milosevic's party gets roughly 14 percent of the vote; Mrs. Markovic's, 2.5 percent.

But even Mr. Draskovic could win only up to 18 percent of the vote, and Mr. Djindjic would probably win no more than possibly 10 percent, requiring a coalition to hammer together a working majority in the Serb or Yugoslav parliaments. And it is in coalition politics - the game of pressure, seduction, blackmail and reward - that Mr. Milosevic is Serbia's master.

He keeps power by playing off Mr. Draskovic and the ultranationalist, Vojislav Seselj. Until recently, Mr. Milosevic retained a majority on the federal level in coalition with Mr. Draskovic and on the more important Serbian level with Mr. Seselj. While Mr. Draskovic left the Government during the war, and Mr. Seselj vowed to quit over the withdrawal from Kosovo, Mr. Seselj is now Mr. Milosevic's coalition partner in both governments.

Just last week, Mr. Milosevic's party leaked a story that he had met Mr. Draskovic secretly to work out a deal on early elections. While Mr. Draskovic vehemently denied any meeting, he does favor early elections, and his aides

blame the leak on Mr. Djindjic. Whatever the truth, the leak was a brilliant stroke to widen opposition divisions and make a bad relationship even worse.

In a formerly Communist system where little has changed in the structure of power, Mr. Milosevic and his wife hold strong, centralized cards to play: a controlled state media, business monopolies, state industries, import licenses, the army and especially the police.

Favored people who play along can make a very great deal of money, with good apartments and insider deals. Those who show disloyalty or challenge the regime are rarely arrested, but they suddenly lose their perks and face police or tax harassment. And a few - not many, but enough to discourage the others - have ended up dead, in mysterious circumstances.

One key official of an opposition party said in an interview that he was offered more than $50,000 to defect to Mr. Milosevic's Socialist Party: He said he refused on

principle. But he noted a common pattern of power, because he was also offered money, though considerably less, to defect to another opposition party, which he also declined to do.

None of this is to say that Mr. Milosevic will manage to save himself through -the autumn, let alone to the end of his term in 2001 or beyond. But he has managed thus far to divide and conquer, buying time and waiting for opportunities to emerge that could leave him in place.

A senior opposition figure, speaking privately, honestly and sadly, said: "Even in such trouble, Milosevic remains the master of the political game, especially with this sort of opposition. We should be able to heat him easily, but he manipulates and discredits us. Ordinary people sense there is something wrong with this opposition. It gives him lots of games to play."