Balkanized Election

YUGOSLAVIA

In the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugo-Slavia), there is a violent election in progress.

Elections in the Balkans, particularly in Yugo-Slavia, work on an entirely different principle than do those in other lands. In the first place, much depends upon whether the Government in power wants to remain in power. Usually it does and, to achieve its desired end, it uses many means. Sometimes it is bribery, often ballot changing, occasionally death, imprisonment or illegal disenfranchisement--all of which efforts are destined to increase the Government's plurality.

Last week, Stefan Raditch, leader of the Croatian autonomists (i.e., those advocating total separation from the Serb Kingdom and self-rule as an independent republic) was found under a bed in a house in Zagreb, the address of which had been supplied by a Radical turned traitor. Police dragged Raditch, who is under a ban for being in league with the Bolsheviki, from under the bed by the heels, cast him into prison.

But this was not all. Raditch's party (Croatian Peasant's Party), which formed the mainstay of the Opposition with 70 seats in the Skupshtina (National Assembly), was disbanded by order of white-whiskered Nikolai Pashitch, ironhanded Premier of Yugo-Slavia. All leaders and some 600 supporters were arrested. Angry faces emitted angry noises, but the inexorable soldiers stood by to see that the bubbling revolutionary spirit did not boil over.

In Belgrade, Yugo-Slavian capital, Nikolai Pashitch pays no attention to the protests and growls of his angry opponents. Sitting back in his easy chair, the octogenarian Premier runs his desiccated fingers through his long beard and confidently hopes for an overwhelming "electoral" victory.