Draskovic: To Be Foreign Minister or Not to Be

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SUBJECT: Draskovic: To Be Foreign Minister or Not to Be


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Summary
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Q (SBU) Rumors abound about the future of Serbia and
Montenegro Foreign Minister (FM),Vuk Draskovic, as his
ministry is dissolved in the wake of the successful
Montenegrin referendum. Although Serbia will create its
own foreign ministry, insiders speculate that Draskovic
(among others) could be slotted for the vacant deputy prime
minister (DPM) position. In deciding Draskovic's future,
Prime Minister Kostunica will need to play a careful
balancing act in order to avoid alienating key members of
his coalition and losing more parliamentary seats.
Draskovic insists he has not intention of giving up the FM
job for the DPM position. End Summary.

Draskovic: Weighing an Offer that May Never Come
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2. (SBU) Even before the Montenegrins voted for
independence, political insiders and journalists had begun
to suggest that Draskovic would not be the Serbian Foreign
Minister in a reorganized government. On issues ranging
from Kosovo to NATO, Kostunica has been frustrated with the
foreign minister's forward-leaning, pro-Western stances.
The Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) has also been highly
critical of Draskovic for similar reasons, and its current
leader, Ivica Dacic, has said the party will not support
Draskovic as Serbian foreign minister [Embassy Comment: The
SPS is the unreformed party of Slobodan Milosevic, who
tried to have Draskovic assassinated twice. The SPS'
support is critical for the survival of Kostunica's
government. End Comment].


3. (SBU) Several Embassy contacts have said that the GOS
may offer to Draskovic the deputy prime minister position
instead, which Miroljub Labus recently vacated, in order to
keep Draskovic in government. It is a generally weaker
position that would allow Draskovic to stay in the
limelight, but largely sideline him from power.
Nonetheless, several individuals close to Draskovic and the
SPO have predicted that Draskovic would likely reject the
DPM offer. Draskovic himself told an Embassy officer that
he is not interested in the DPM job in exchange for the FM
position.


4. (SBU) Alternatively, Milos Aligrudic, Chairman of the
DSS parliamentary caucus, told poloff that Kostunica
prefers to keep the current coalition arrangement that
gives the SPO control over the foreign ministry. He added
that the government can only count on 130 MPs in parliament
and does not want to risk losing Draskovic and his three
deputies, which would make governance difficult even though
the coalition could survive. He said that the GOS is
trying to find a compromise that will satisfy the SPO and
SPS and has even reached out to the opposition Democratic
Party (DS) for support. Senic also noted that Draskovic
hopes the DSS and the DS will provide enough votes to
appoint him to be Serbian foreign minister, should the SPS
threaten to vote down his nomination. Nonetheless, senior
DS officials already have told emboffs that they will not
support a government measure to appoinQraskovic. If
Draskovic does inherit the Serbian MFA, Senic said that the
SPO could leave government after its main board meeting in
June. He added, however, that the SPO is opposed to
immediate elections, although anticipates them before the
end of the year. In an interesting twist, one political
insider told us 5/26 that Kostunica has also secured
agreement from Nebojsa Covic's (SDP) two MPs to support the
coalition in the event that Draskovic and his 3 MPs walk.
Biographic Note on Draskovic: The Nationalist Chameleon
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5. (U) Vuk Drakovic was born to a Serbian family of
colonists who populated Vojvodina after Tito expelled
500,000 ethnic Germans after World War II. In 1968, he
graduated from the Faculty of Law at Belgrade University
and worked as a journalist and later as chief of staff for
a high-ranking communist official. In the 1980's, he became
famous as a writer, whose fiction celebrated nationalism by
dramatizing the aggregious atrocities that Croats committed
against Serbs during WW2. He often invokes images of the
past in his speeches and has called for a return to the
monarchy. Most recently, on May 21, 2006, he said, A
constitutional parliamentary monarchy would be a sound
foundation for Serbia to build on. Nonetheless, Senic
told poloff that, while Draskovic may personally support a
return of the monarchy, the SPO generally saw it as a
vehicle to attract support from the 600,000 royalist Serbs
and do not seriously consider it a likely or viable option.

6.(U) During the 1990's, Draskovic and his close
se

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friends, Vojislav Seselj (Draskovic's best man)and Mirko
Jovic, founded the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO).
Draskovic strongly supported the war against Croatia and
sent his personal paramilitary force, the Serbian Guard, to
fight there. Nonetheless, he had a falling out with
Milosevic because of two factors: first, his rabid anti-
communist sentiments; and second, he did not believe it was
possible to carve out a separate Serb territory in Bosnia
and thought doing so would reflect badly on Serbs and
destroy Bosnia. As a result, he took his followers to the
street in massive anti-government demonstrations.

7. (U) During this period, Milosevic's forces arrested and
beat Draskovic and his wife, Danica. This event gained him
sympathy from the international community and the
acceptance of pro-democratic opposition leaders.
Opposition forces won an election victory in 1996, but fell
apart under strong pressure from Milosevic and internal
squabbling. As they unraveled, Draskovic started to
maneuver his party closer to Milosevic and made a deal to
topple Djindjic for control of the Belgrade city
government. Draskovic then joined Milosevic's Federal
government and for a short time was Deputy Prime Minister.
This relationship, however, fell apart at the height of the
NATO bombing when Draskovic criticized Milosevic's handling
of the Kosovo crisis. Milosevic retaliated by setting up
two assassination attempts on Draskovic in 1999, in which
his brother-in-law was killed, and June 2000. Nonetheless,
in 2000, the electorate voted the SPO out of the
parliament. Despite this, he resurrected himself and his
party in 2003 as a tiny minority partner in the current
coalition.
Comment
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8. (SBU) Vuk Draskovic has become an ally of the United
States and supports SaM joining NATO; two positions that
undoubtedly have earned him the ire of the Socialists. The
Prime Minister may not be opposed to sidelining the vocal
Foreign Minister by appointing him to amorphous deputy
prime minister position, which did not carry much weight
even under Labus. Nonetheless, his primary focus is
keeping a manageable majority in parliament by any means
necessary--a skill to which Kostunica has proved remarkably
adept--and likely will keep Draskovic as foreign minister
unless the SPS threatens to withdraw its support. As for
Draskovic, his long-term prospects are questionable, with
his party divided and performing terribly in the polls.
Nonetheless, we should not count him out yet. He is an
active voice in the Serbian political drama and has revived
his political career on more than one occasion. End
Comment.
POLT