{"id":112,"date":"2017-03-30T09:06:32","date_gmt":"2017-03-30T08:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.masina.rs\/eng\/?p=112"},"modified":"2017-03-30T12:25:02","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T11:25:02","slug":"presidential-elections-serbia-something-new","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.masina.rs\/eng\/presidential-elections-serbia-something-new\/","title":{"rendered":"Presidential elections in Serbia: something new?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo: Nemanja Pan\u010di\u0107 \/ Kamerades<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Will the upcoming presidential election in Serbia offer an alternative? At the beginning of the campaigns a moth ago \u200bopposition candidates were framing their proposals within the discourse of lesser evil \u2013 which amounts to covering the lack of actual alternatives.\u200b But a month after this article was published in Serbian a new candidate appeared – it remains to see what will be the developments on Sunday when voters head to the ballot boxes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This year\u2019s election will decide on who will be the next President of the Republic. In the midst of a destruction of democratic mechanisms, the symbolic charge given to this position comes from the fact that this is the only remaining political position which is elected directly. Many personalities were announcing their candidacies, candidates-comedians developed into serious competition, while three personalities have provided us with an idea about their pre-election appearances, campaigns and their ideological frameworks. What follows is the overview of campaigns and political positions of Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107, Vuk Jeremi\u0107 and Sa\u0161a Jankovi\u0107.<\/p>\n

Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is not easy to discuss the current Prime Minister\u2019s campaigns in terms of predictions \u2013 mostly since it is unclear when a campaign ends and another begins (i.e. if it ever ends). Even if we disregard his practice for the last few years of using state media as private tools for his personal promotion, it is a complete mystery which methods will be used for this campaign\u2019s realization, since that depends on the marketing agencies\u2019 plan which is to create the \u201cAleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107\u201d brand. The only product we can work with for now is the infamous airplane video<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although reactions were mostly negative, we could not claim that the video is poorly done. From the marketing point of view the video is great: everyone who watched saw it through without blinking. If it were a bad<\/em> video, the marketing agency that created it would not have managed to sell it a few times: in Ukraine, Slovakia, Serbia, etc. Mastery is at hand: archetypal and explicit political plans are intertwined since the \u201cplot\u201d is taking place in a (hypothetical) situation in which the value judgment is already fixed and in which choosing the offered option is presented as the only solution to the otherwise hopeless situation. Trace of metalanguage<\/em> enables us to consider the plan, strategy and political goal. Usage of archetypal tropes and deep ideological signifiers (order\/chaos) created space for the double slogan of the campaign: the explicit and an implicit \u2013 metaslogan.<\/p>\n

The imaginary situation of an airplane about to crash because of the argument between the pilot and the co-pilot is a perfect map of the newly conservative political ethos which starts with the supposition that the dissonant tones<\/em> are to blame, and that what the society needs is order (Ordnung). Thus, Vu\u010di\u0107, in place of \u201cfaster, better, stronger\u201d offers the introduction of order<\/em>. How to reach such a goal? Through elimination of antagonistic tendencies \u2013 those that create disorder, and it seems that one of the steps in achieving such a goal is: abolishment of the president\u2019s direct election.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> And the political goal is the rightist La La Land<\/em> \u2013 society as scared and passive passengers, leader as the savior, pilot and deliverer of order, while democracy is just a nicely institutionalized channel for acclamation.<\/p>\n

What we are seeing is a banal reflection on multi-decade ideological foundation of political spheres in post-transitional societies: the supposed messianic task of transitional elites is the reconstruction of capitalist relations through \u201ccleaning\u201d of the mess made by socialism and blaming the socialist non-discipline and naughty request for emancipation and class mobility.<\/p>\n

Vuk Jeremi\u0107<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a long road between a globally ambitious and a locally mediocre candidate. Jeremi\u0107\u2019s campaign is old news already \u2013 online advertisements have been looping for months, and its structure is also old: this candidate plays it safe on the card of civic nationalism \u2013 most general and politically emptiest big phrase in the political spectrum. Politics in Serbia has been wandering between different kinds of nationalism since the disintegration of Yugoslavia, so this candidate\u2019s both campaign and political career can be most clearly understood as the consequence of the proliferation of nationalism with different colors.<\/p>\n

Thus, Jeremi\u0107\u2019s campaign is one of the substantially emptiest among tough competition: not a trace of value descriptors, just a story of a grandfather who fought in a famous WWI battle, strengthened with a subtle criticism of governmental staffing choices, and the alleged incompetency and ignorance. It seems that his metaslogan is: \u201cSame, only a little better.\u201d<\/p>\n

At first sight, Jeremi\u0107 aims for the downside of Serbia whose upside is reserved for Sa\u0161a Jankovi\u0107: civic Serbia, nationalist subtype. What is interesting is the fact that not many doubt the supposition of pre-election accountants that Jeremi\u0107 and Jankovi\u0107 are aiming for different pockets of the voting body opposed to Vu\u010di\u0107\u2019s rule: the former is more \u201cnationalist\u201d, the latter more \u201ccivic\u201d. This is a consequence of identitarian fogs, confusions and illusions since the fact that both campaigns use the same combination of tropes from the registry of generalities<\/em> and famous ancestors<\/em>, and the fact that a clear demarcation between these two groups cannot be easily established.<\/p>\n

Sa\u0161a Jankovi\u0107<\/strong><\/p>\n

He is the only candidate who identified \u201cthe left\u201d and invited it. However, this invitation is a part of a broader one directed to \u201call\u201d: the left and the right, the upper and the lower, \u0161ajka\u010de<\/em> <\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and top hats (really: how much longer can this last?) but, above all, to the mythic, \u201cdecent\u201d Serbia. His pre-election rally was a deep disappointment: pathetic modernization of the already symbolically poor anthem (which probably had to play a role of the shabby symbolic connection between \u201cold\u201d and \u201cnew\u201d), support from problematic personalities, calling on mythic \u201cdecency\u201d, and, lastly, arrogant appearance of the leaders of two worn parties which, with their shadows, endangered the possibility of articulating alternative politics based on the foundations Jankovi\u0107 built in the position of the ombudsman. The spirit of antimilo\u0161evi\u0107ism<\/em> metastasized during the rally into a collection of run-down symbolic distinctions of \u201cus\u201d (\u201cdecent ones\u201d) and \u201cthem\u201d (\u201cindecent ones\u201d) and other identitarian descriptors, showing the essential impotence of the \u201copposition\u201d to disconnect from the identitarian anchorage where it secured itself three decades ago.<\/p>\n

In other words, it is obvious once again that the \u201copposition\u201d in Serbia is ideologically immobilized: Vu\u010di\u0107 adopted the basic mainstream and sometime oppositional narrative (\u201cprivatize!\u201d) \u2013 and started to implement it with much more efficacy, so others are left with nothing more than to separate the \u201cdecent\u201d from \u201cindecent\u201d. Thus Jankovi\u0107 is in danger of becoming yet another identitarian<\/em> candidate who counts on identification of some \u201cdecent\u201d Serbia, since the makers of his campaign will not recognize neither the hidden cultural racism of this term nor will they recognize it as an identitarian signifier<\/em>: on the contrary, they will recognize it as an advantage<\/em>, elitism<\/em> in relation to other citizens \u2013 convenient justification for the unjustified head in the clouds. \u201cDecency\u201d is thus established as a self-deceptive trick which will enable the voting body to feel superior despite the very possible defeat in the election; Noah\u2019s ark which will carry the voting body to the next election in which, as the Democratic Party naively believes, Vu\u010di\u0107 will have no other options.<\/p>\n

Although there was a marginal possibility that Jankovi\u0107 will position himself as a candidate of the alternative, he seemingly opted for the formula with which he certainly will be defeated: centrist demagogy, old-fashioned campaign, unavoidable hero grandfather from WWI, compromises on sensitive issues (Kosovo and Republic of Srpska), reliance on shabby \u201celitism\u201d and deceptive support of the deflated party establishment. Crucified between his own conscience and the campaign\u2019s requests, Jankovi\u0107 is like a swimmer who wanders into a school of sharks. Thus the association between the Democratic Party and Jankovi\u0107 looks like a theatrical hara-kiri; swansong of the opposition constituted in the 90s; suicidal attack in a reality TV show during which he will burn out due to the forcefulness of demonstrating his own decency. But, all in all, maybe that\u2019s for the best: final end of the opposition which grew out of the empty rightist demagogy during the nineties would be the best thing that can happen to some future opposition here.<\/p>\n

The direct consequence of the identitarian wandering of \u201cdecent\u201d Serbia is a chronic lack of a platform, or even the basic political orientation. And this is precisely where this candidate\u2019s key problem is located. The ombudsman\u2019s task is simple \u2013 follow the law. The situation becomes much more complicated when one is politically engaged, it is not enough to be principled or to \u201cfollow the law\u201d: one must politically orient oneself not in relation to some things, but in relation to all things. Political orientation is like metaphysics \u2013 throw it out the door and it will reenter through the window.<\/p>\n

After the critique, let\u2019s try to point out possible trajectories through which Jankovi\u0107 can escape the thick identitarian forest of the division between folkers and rock\u2019n\u2019rollers.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> If his intention is to position himself as an alternative candidate \u2013 he will must, even generally, make up his mind on life questions. Thus, particular questions he must<\/em> answer are launched from the left:<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n