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Leadership Crisis Plunges Bosnian Serb Party into Turmoil

23 11 2006  With the abrupt departure of its reformist leader Dragan Cavic, the struggle is on for the soul of the SDS.

By Gordana Katana in Banja Luka (Balkan Insight, 23 Nov 06)

The leading party among the Bosnian Serbs is facing its most testing time since its founder, the Hague fugitive Radovan Karadzic, went into hiding.

The dark prognosis for the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, comes hot on the heels of the resignation of its leader for the last two years, Dragan Cavic.

Cavic, seen as a moderate force in the party that the international community has condemned for its divisive politics, quit on November 14.

He went days after the party’s main board passed a vote of no confidence in the leadership, citing dissatisfaction with the outcome of Bosnia and Herzegovina's general elections held on October 1.

In the elections, the SDS, which has dominated the RS since the early 1990s, suffered badly at the hands of the Party of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, led by Milorad Dodik, the prime minister of the Republika Srpska, RS.

Analysts say the election result was only a trigger, bringing to the surface the internal squabbles that have plagued the SDS since 2004.

Fifteen years after its creation, the SDS stands at a crossroads, torn between hard-line nationalists and moderate reformists.

Observers say the party must now reunite or face the likelihood of fragmentation as members walk out or form new parties.

The party’s woes began in June 2004 when the former High Representative, Paddy Ashdown, removed 60 Bosnian Serb politicians from office, most of them SDS members, for obstructive behaviour and for maintaining close links to the Hague tribunal fugitive Karadzic.

One of the most prominent to go was Dragan Kalinic, then the party leader and president of the RS national assembly.

Cavic was appointed acting president in August 2004 and almost immediately adopted a more moderate and internationally friendly line.

He said the intense and hostile international scrutiny of the party left no other choice.

“We must not delude ourselves. The crucial problem for the SDS is its relationship with the international community,” he said in October 2004.

“Our lack of credibility causes major problems for us whenever we win elections.”

Cavic quickly reshuffled the ranks and brought fresh faces into the leadership.

That same month, however, the SDS suffered another blow in the local elections. The party lost power in key municipalities in eastern RS, which had been the party’s stronghold.

The result undermined the new course, as hardliners blamed the new moderate leadership for the fiasco at the polls.

Milan Grubac, a party founder from Trebinje in eastern Herzegovina, where the SDS experienced a crushing defeat, said Cavic was responsible for their waning fortunes. Grubac also expressed regret that Kalinic was no longer at the top.

Since then, Cavic’s aim to transform the SDS into a “modern European people’s party” has failed to win over the membership, say analysts.

Tanja Topic, of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, said Cavic had made several good moves. But these were “not acceptable to the SDS or the general public in the Republika Srpska”.

As president of the RS, he made history before assuming the party leadership
in
July 2004, when he became the first Bosnian Serb politician to admit the crimes committed in Srebrenica. There, armed Serbs had killed about 8,000 Bosniaks in July 1995. In a televised address, Cavic called it “a dark page in the history of Bosnian Serbs”.

But many party members never approved of such moves, Topic said the most recent election defeat, therefore, merely offered a pretext to finally get rid of him.

Professor Slobodan Sijakovic, of Banja Luka University of Economics, agreed.
“SDS party members have never forgiven Cavic for
admitting to the crimes committed in Srebrenica and for embracing … the dissolution of the Republika Srpska Army,” he said.

“The SDS had always denied the atrocities in Srebrenica, which was why the party members always blamed Cavic for his actions.”

Srdjan Puhalo, of the Banja Luka-based polling agency, Partner, said Cavic never gained a consensus within the party for his reformist course. “Cavic tried to reform the SDS but failed,” said Puhalo.

“The reforms created a false impression in public that he had things under control.

“But the local strongmen from Bijeljina in the north to Trebinje in the south were always waiting for the moment to come down on Cavic, as they could not accept a reformed SDS giving up its hard-line nationalist policies.”

One such was Bozidar Vucurevic, an SDS founder from Trebinje who turned up in Banja Luka for the board meeting after avoiding the RS capital for years.

Though not a member of the main board, Vucurevic said he came to Banja Luka to attend the meeting on November 14 and support the rebels against Cavic.

“The leadership of any serious political party should leave in the aftermath of a major collapse and catastrophic election results,” said Vucurevic.

“Democracy has been lost within the party and now we must reclaim it.”

On the eve of the board meeting, about 70 senior party members heightened the pressure on Cavic when they sent a letter to the board demanding his dismissal.

Many were the same men that Ashdown had banned from politics in 2004, including Kalinic and Goran Popovic.

Popovic, head of the Banja Luka SDS branch until his dismissal in 2004, told the media he signed the letter in protest against Cavic’s “political hallucinations”.

Popovic likened Cavic’s leadership of the SDS to a “dictatorship” and said the party needed to act fast to “avoid going down in history in infamy”.

He blamed Cavic for severing the party’s ties with one of the ruling parties in Serbia, the Democratic Party of Serbia, the Serbian government and the Serbian Orthodox Church.

“They have made enemies of our good friends,” Popovic said of Cavic and his allies.

Party members who rallied before to Cavic’s side are now more cautious in expressing support.

Milovan Bjelica, from Pale, near Sarajevo, has been the only senior party official to publicly back him.

“The SDS was close to being named as a criminal organisation, helping war crimes suspects,” said Bjelica. “Thanks to Cavic, this has not happened.”

“Cavic steered the SDS ship clear of all dangers. He has helped SDS find its way.”

Zeljko Kopanja, of the Banja Luka daily, Nezavisne Novine, told Balkan Insight the turmoil in the SDS might well mark the beginning of the end for the party.

Puhalo on the other hand said the SDS had a secure future if it returned to its nationalist roots.

“The people of the Republika Srpska want the SDS to be the way it used be,” he said.

However, Sijakovic cautioned against the idea that old-fashioned hard-line nationalism was still enough to win elections in the RS.

“Other political parties… have resorted to what was once the SDS's trump card of nationalism and the protection of the Republika Srpska, but citizens have only embraced this concept when it is spiced up with economic and social issues,” he said.

“No one can rely on nationalist rhetoric alone to come to power and rule the Republika Srpska.”

Gordana Katana is a regular Balkan Insight contributor based in Banja Luka. Balkan Insight is BIRN’s online publication.