It was refreshing to hear, for once, someone being optimistic about the future of Serbia. We met today with Tom Kelly, director of the local National Democratic Institute branch in Serbia, along with a few of his local young workers, Duchan, Buoena, and Marco. They were the youngest NGO we met with, being first established in 1996, but not being able to operate until around 2001, after the fall of Milosevic.
We were able to go more in-depth in our questions about the issues and challenges facing the political progress in Serbia, since we now had the benefit of a few days worth of experience and learning about the country. A lot of what we had learned, about the lack of internal party democracy, a general apathy amongst the populace, an unsustainable and declining economy, and a drain of the country's best and brightest for elsewhere left little room to be cheerful, but Tom reminded us that political progress is very rarely a steady thing. Many times, it is like trying to move a boulder from the top of a hill; you can strain for a long time just trying to budge it, with no apparent success, when suddenly it does move, and rolls on very quickly.
He drew a parallel in this case to the Arab Spring, noting that use of social media per capita in Serbia is one of the highest in the world. A kind of "Serbian Spring," he predicted, would come about in five years or so, as the youth of Serbia realize the potential that networking can provide for exercising and demanding their democratic rights.
That kind of mass activism, however, has yet to show itself, mostly because there are few issues around which the entire Serbian population can unite. Kosovo is one, but that does not tend to force change in any democratic way. Milosevic was another, and all four related how impressive the activist coordination was in that case. However, the lack of uniting issues and systemic troubles within the Serbian government make necessary several more years of hard, grassroots work for reform.
The main problem is the party and electoral structure; the political parties in Serbia are based around leaders, not policy platforms. There is little internal discussion and debate about the direction and issues that the party will focus on, all of that tends to be dictated from above. Ideas don't flow upward.
Secondarily, this problem is also reflected in the electoral structure. There are no districts, and therefore no constituencies. The people vote for their favored parties, and the proportion of seats in the Parliament are divided accordingly. MP names aren't on the ballot; they're appointed by the party head. That means that MP's are loyal not to the people who elected them, but to the party head that appointed them. This is a significant problem, but momentum is gathering around potential reforms of the system.
Another key issues that requires focus is that of transparency. Most policy discussions in Serbia happend behind closed doors, which makes it difficult to monitor and publicly discuss what is going on. Unsurprisingly, corruption flourishes in such an environment, to the point where its considered crazy not to appropriate public funds if you can get your hands on them. Outreach programs on the necessity of fairness have been funded to correct this issue, although the recent financial crisis, which has increased the impoverishment of the Serbians, have left a lot of them critical of public officials who get rich off of tax dollars. This is at least something in the way of a silver lining to that economic disaster.
Still, quite a few initiatives are showing progress; one municipal official had a clever way of utilizing Twitter: Citizens would take and post pictures of different problems, potholes and the like, that they saw on the streets, and he would direct his attention to fixing them, the next day if possible. This kind of engagement, by which a leader can get in touch with his constituency through new media, and be held accountable by the people for his work for them, is a very good way of showing how democracy can be an improvement in the daily lives of Serbians. That can then be used as further momentum for change.
It is good to see some hope for this country before we leave it; as we have traveled in Central and Eastern Europe, I have felt that in each city we have visited, the prospects have gone from bright to bleak. Berlin had the benefit of a "Western Half" to support the other, and Budapest had at least some reform before backsliding upon which to build some kind of recovery. Here, things have looked pretty grim, but after meeting with the NDI, I'm not ready to abandon hope just yet.
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