Can elections change anything?
by http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4187
On one of the Communist-era housing projects in the western part of http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4086 – a slab of concrete once gray and foreboding and recently painted a shade of ochre to give it at least a semblance of warmth – there is a graffito in dark red spray-paint: “If elections changed anything, they would make them illegal.” It’s hard to imagine anyone in Bosnia has heard of Emma Goldman, but her words ring true; there is a marked tendency for the same people to end up in power after every election, even if they have to change party affiliation in the meantime. All of Bosnia’s communities are always promised change – but they always end up losing what little change they have in their pockets.
A careful look reveals a similar pattern in the neighboring Serbia. Since the October 2000 coup, lavishly supported by the Empire, the Democratic Opposition (DOS) bloc has broken down into feuding camps, but if one looks at the cabinets from the time of Zoran Djindjic to the present, certain names tend to appear as permanent fixtures. For example, Mladjan Dinkic and Bozidar Djelic have always somehow been in charge of fiscal and monetary policy, no matter whether the government was in the hands of Djindjic, Zivkovic, or Kostunica. Serbia may have spent the past eight years in the metaphorical wilderness politically, but its economic policy has always been in the hands of a small party called G17-Plus. It is a mighty strange coincidence that G17 is now part of the “democratic reformer” bloc, promising Europe and wealth, as if they weren’t the ones behind the disastrous mismanagement – indeed, outright pillaging – of the country already despoiled by war and a decade of internationally imposed isolation.Goldman’s dictum about elections certainly applies to the United States. Democrats and Republicans may argue loudly with each other – and among themselves – on a multitude of issues, but they all agree that each and every one of them requires forceful government action.
http://antiwar.com/malic/?articleid=12732