PRESS CONFERENCE BY FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE BY FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA

At a Headquarters press conference yesterday morning, the Minister of Information of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), Radmila Milentijevic, said the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections to be held on 21 September would be the most democratic experienced in Serbia since the country had switched form a one-party to a multiparty system in 1990.

Outlining recent developments in the electoral process in Serbia and a new law on information, Ms. Milentijevic said the existence of peace in Serbia and the surrounding countries, along with the lifting of sanctions, had contributed to an atmosphere of peace and security in which people were beginning to look forward to the future. That was very evident in the political campaigning for the upcoming elections.

Following the disputed local government elections and the unfortunate consequences which the country had experienced last fall, the Government had passed legislation that would make a repetition of that scenario impossible, the Minister said. Three very important laws had been passed by the Serbian Parliament in July -- on elections of parliamentary deputies, on electoral districts and on the financing of political parties. They provided the legal basis for equal participation of all candidates in the elections. They also provided for a lawful and efficient implementation of electoral procedures and established a proportional system for the election of parliamentary deputies.

Ms. Milentijevic said an agreement had also been signed between the Ministry of Information, State-owned television and radio stations and more than 50 political parties, to provide for equality of coverage of all political candidates on State-owned media. Even though the vast majority of radio and television stations were not registered, even those media had been given total freedom to broadcast during the electoral campaign.

In other developments, her Government had established an electoral commission and a supervisory board to monitor the electoral process on a daily basis, including the conduct of political parties, their candidates and the mass media. As another step to ensure that the election was democratic, she said the President of Serbia had invited the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and parliaments of all countries which had recognized the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to send observers to monitor the election.

All those measures had provided a very important framework within which the elections could take place, Ms. Milentijevic said. The climate for the elections had also improved, with political candidates taking a more constructive approach. There was more tolerance, understanding and accommodation among the candidates and their parties' political positions.

That was evident in the postures of many of the leaders of the political parties, such as the Left Coalition and the Radical Party of Serbia.

In spite of those developments, a number of smaller parties were boycotting the elections, she said. Among them were the Democratic Party and the Citizen's Alliance of Serbia, which claimed that there was a lack of democracy in the electoral process. Their position was partly in response to new legislation which had established proportional representation in the Assembly. By its terms, only parties which gained more than 5 per cent of the vote in each of the 29 electoral districts would qualify for the 250 parliamentary seats. As a result, the smaller parties had less chance of being represented in the Parliament. On their own, they could not gain seats in Parliament.

Ms. Milentijevic said that since her appointment as Minister of Information in February, much had changed in the way the media operated. The coverage of politics by the State-owned media now represented the political situation more realistically. Of the more than 2,500 newspapers, over 400 television stations and more than 400 radio stations, the vast majority were not registered and functioned independently.

The Minister said her Government would have to intervene to contain the "illegal economy" and "anarchy in the media" which had developed as a result of sanctions and the ensuing economic problems in the country. Many of the radio and television stations were not financially able to produce their own programmes and continued to exist by pirating programmes from other stations. It was a situation the Government would have to deal with soon after the elections.

Part of the problem was attributable to the existence of two laws governing the media: the law on public information, which was in the process of being changed, and the federal laws of "Socialist Yugoslavia", which remained valid until they were changed. Since both laws were "in collision", the Government would have to enact new laws reflecting the new situation in Serbia and Montenegro and to resolve the situation of illegal media.

Ms. Milentijevic said the draft law now before the legislature would guarantee freedom of speech and information, reflect the new democratization of the media, be in line with media law in the rest of Western Europe and guarantee fundamental freedoms. It would mandate that all government agencies make information available to the public, including journalists, and would provide for the protection of citizens from disinformation and unfounded attacks by the media. It was hoped that the new law would assist in the development of more professional journalism in Serbia.

Would United Nations observers participate in the elections? a correspondent asked. What would be the relationship between the OSCE observers and the Electoral Commission? Ms. Milentijevic said the United

Milentijevic Press Conference - 3 - 11 September 1997

Nations observers would participate, as well as many observers from the United States. All observers would be working closely with the Electoral Commission and would be travelling throughout the country.

Asked why the political parties from the Kosovo region in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia were not participating in the elections, Ms. Milentijevic said that was a political position that had existed for several years. The political leadership of the Albanian population in Kosovo had refused to participate in the political process in Serbia. Although that was their right, it was a wrong position to take. By not being part of the Government, they would not be able to influence its policies.

The Minister said a different position had been taken by the Muslim population of Sandzak, an area bounded by Serbia and Montenegro, Kosovo and Bosnia. In the last local election, the Muslims had gained political power in every major city in the area of Sandzak. Another ethnic group, the Hungarian population, was also taking an active part in the elections. However, not all ethnic Albanians supported the position taken by the Kosovo leadership. A number of Albanians were candidates in some of the political parties and a number of them voted, but the majority abstained.

Ms. Milentijevic went on to say that the elections should proceed without any major obstacles. A full spectrum of ideology was represented in the political parties and in the electoral campaign, for which more than 7 million voters were registered. A full turnout of voters was expected for both the parliamentary and presidential elections. The first round of the presidential elections, for which there were candidates, would be particularly interesting. However, the results might lead to a second round of presidential elections. "The voters, for the first time, have real choices. This is what makes the outcome not as predictable as in the past."

Asked about opinion polls of the electorate, the Minister said the polls on the presidential campaign had been inconclusive. On the parliamentary elections, they had shown that the Left Coalition was in the lead. The reasons for that were many, and included the country's recent political stability and the revival of the economy. That revival was evident in increased foreign trade, privatization of the State communications company and improvement in the agricultural sector during the past year. In general, life was beginning to look better in the country which favoured Socialist parliamentary candidates.

A correspondent said that Ms. Milentijevic had been called the Madeleine Albright of Yugoslavia. Asked if she saw herself becoming a secretary of state in Yugoslavia, the Minister said she was happy with her position. She enjoyed working with the media and with foreign journalists who visited the country and was ready to serve Serbia in whatever position she was asked to fill.

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