NIS Democracy Roundtable Breathes Fresh Air into Local

UNCLAS BELGRADE 001850

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV KDEM PREL SR
SUBJECT: NIS Democracy Roundtable Breathes Fresh Air into Local
Politics

REF: Belgrade 1719

SUMMARY
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1. (U) In the first of what Embassy Belgrade hopes to be a series
of such events, poloff moderated a roundtable in Nis on November 4
designed to bring together Serbian democratic bloc parties to show
our support for them and to help them encourage voter participation
as part of our overall GOTV campaign (reftel). The event, organized
through the USG-funded Media Center in Nis, featured local chapters
of the Democratic Party (DS),the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS),
G-17 Plus, and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) (Serbia Renewal
Movement (SPO) accepted but failed to appear),and was covered by
local media. The participants engaged in constructive dialogue on
topics related to local civic participation and apathetic democratic
voters. Aside from a minor clash between a representative of LDP and
his counterpart from DSS on the subject of alleged fraud during the
recent Constitutional Referendum, conversation flowed smoothly and
representatives discussed their common ideals, motivations, and
hopes for the future of Serbia.


2. (U) Representatives of the democratic parties discussed their
own motivations for being involved in politics, including fighting
against the Milosevic regime in the 1990's, with an LDP official
asserting that in Serbia, "politics is a fight for life."
Participants of the roundtable agreed that democrats need to
increase their direct personal contact with voters, remove
stereotypes of politicians by their own actions, and push for
greater decentralization and less bureaucratic obstacles to make
changes in the their communities. As one LDP representative said,
voter confusion remains a big problem, and the parties need to make
their platforms clear for citizens in their communities.


3. (SBU) Local media addressed most of their questions to the local
party officials, asking pointed questions about their willingness to
form coalitions and decentralize authority from Belgrade to
individual municipalities. Following the event, the roundtable was
covered briefly by national outlets B92, Blic, and Press, which
focused on poloff's comments exhorting potential voters to
participate in the upcoming elections and signaling USG support for
democratic parties in Serbia. Encouragingly, neither Kosovo nor
ICTY came up at all, either in the course of the conversation or in
the Q and A session that followed.

COMMENT
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4. (SBU) One conference organizer remarked after the event that
this was the first time in two years the democratic parties had been
seen talking to each other in Nis, and their first real interaction
with the media in some time. Local attendees encouraged the Embassy
to hold follow-on events in Nis and additional similar events
throughout the country. Given the success of this roundtable, we
are looking at replicating the format in selected regions on a
regular basis in the pre-election period as part of our overall GOTV
strategy.

POLT