21 November 2006 Don’t vote for Notax!
Elections are coming up! On my birthday, too!
All political parties that started campaigning were so nice that they gave me ridiculously bad coalitions, slogans and advertisements as my birthday gift. Seriously, I have no other explanation, so lemme point out few that come to mind:
Democratic party of Serbia (a.k.a. Judean People’s Front)
The party with the incumbent prime minister came up with a slogan, which is in no way populist, “Long live Serbia!” Their main coalition partner will be New Serbia “because of coalition’s previous success on local elections.” I really underestimated KoÅ¡tunica (our current PM) when I said he was a “master of populist puppetry”.
Democratic party (a.k.a. People’s Front of Judea)
Our biggest democratic party striked us with a rather morbid quote of late Zoran ÄinÄ‘ić: “People, we only got one life!” Aside for obvious theological implications, I’m very dissapointed that a political party has to use images of a dead person (no matter how good a prime minister he was) to promote themselves. It does make me think they don’t have anybody who is good AND has a pulse.
Their campaign started with a proposal to rename Boulevard of AVNOJ to Boulevard of Zoran ÄinÄ‘ić. That would be groovy, if AVNOJ wasn’t the Anti-fascist council of people’s liberation of Yugoslavia. Saving the world from fascism is nice in anyone’s portfolio, so taking away AVNOJ’s boulevard would be like changing a street named after Winston Churchill to carry Margaret Thatcher’s name.
Liberal Democratic Party et al.
I’d like them to get into the Parliament. Their unique non-sloven appearance, realism on Kosovo and no “Long live Serbia” chants, would make them perfect to stir things up a notch. Especially considering people like Petar Luković are on the list (imagine a Feral Tribune’s columnist giving a speech in front of the Parliament!).
But, and its a big but, for some reason they invited demo-christians Vladan Batić and Milan St. Protić to their list. I would hate to vote for somebody who writes his name using middle initials “St.”, but I also think that a civic coalition should NOT, under any circumstances, have a guy who invites a priest to bless the embassy building in Washington on their list.
Serbian Radical Party
Finally, my favorite: their campaign started with the party’s president, Vojislav Å eÅ¡elj, going on hunger strike in the Internatinal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia’s prison.
Fat people should not go on hunger strikes.
UPDATE: We just had our first candidate (Mlađan Dinkić of G17+) promise to have a solution that will allow Serbia to keep (or get) sovereignity over Kosovo. Of course, he did not specify his plan, but it seems it involves money.
Comments
pengovsky- wrote on Nov 21, 11:18 PM:
Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Serbia: Political Parties- wrote on Nov 22, 05:59 AM:
bganon- wrote on Nov 23, 12:49 AM:
As I understand it - although in Serbia its very confused, LDP are anti clerical and left on the national issues and pretty centre right on free market issues. I would guess that the Christian Democrats should have reverse position.
The only thing that seems to matter isnt political philosophy - its getting, as they say in English 'bums on seats'.
Still, perhaps it will be good to see LDP in parliament - although it will give politicians further excuses to disagree and do nothing. I predict polemics between them, the radicals, DSS and DS that will go on for months inside and outside parliament through the media.
You didnt mention Paskaljevic joining G17's electoral list. Did you hear his reasoning? Because G17 promised to protect animal rights! A political party that above all concerns itself with free market economics - concerned with animal rights?...
serbianmess- wrote on Nov 23, 03:11 AM:
Bganon, I too have no idea what DHSS members are doing on LDP's list. But I have never read their program either.
G17 does have the problem of not being well rounded as a political party. In fact, all of Serbia has a problem with political parties not institutionalizing democracy (which is why I'm against the current constitution). We, the citizens, need to be able to choose a party thru which we can influence the government, and that may be what Paskaljević is doing, which is good. However, I don't see what exactly is the program of G17 and what is their ideology/leanings, aside for the semi-free market. In the current government, they just watched Mladić not being arrested and didn't do anything about it. I'd say that's how politicians stay out of politics...
- pengovsky
- wrote on Nov 23, 07:22 PM:
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