TAKING TO THE STREETS

By Kevin Fedarko

Fate sometimes provides by taking away. For six years, Zoran Djindjic backed nearly every idea, every group and every trend that might lessen the absolute hold on power enjoyed by his country's imperious, corrupt and autocratic President, Slobodan Milosevic. But the despotic leader stood unbowed and seemingly unconquerable. Relentless in his quest, Djindjic decided to run for mayor of Serbia's capital, Belgrade. Three weeks ago, to the astonishment of many observers, he won. Then, to no one's real surprise, Milosevic reacted to his party's stunning defeat by ordering the courts to annul the election, in which 14 other city halls were also taken by opposition politicians. For Djindjic, the move to crush his victory at last gave him his moment.

Tens of thousands of students, intellectuals and elderly citizens had poured into the streets of downtown Belgrade to celebrate their election victory when, on Nov. 21, the court rulings turned their joy to outrage. In an afternoon ritual that showed no sign of abating, they pelted Milosevic's ministries with snowballs, eggs and paper airplanes while serenading his government's empty office windows with catcalls, whistles, kazoos and jeers. Prominent among them was Djindjic, 44, his charisma, intellect and charm suddenly allowed full play in what had become not only a Serbian theater but also a world forum. Foreigners were even learning to pronounce his name (the dj sounds like the g in ginger). By last week the remarkable display had some crowd watchers looking for signs of similarity with the Tiananmen Square protests and with earlier successful popular uprisings in central and eastern Europe.

Now unmistakable in his black turtleneck and soft tweed jacket, the former university professor had been until recently but one among many voices in the cacophonous crowd of Zajedno (Together), a coalition whose members were united only by their opposition to Milosevic. Zajedno's potpourri included everything from strident Serb nationalists whose hard-line politics are as autocratic as Milosevic's, to liberals infatuated with Western democracy. Plagued by disunity, backstabbing and factional feuds, Zajedno's concatenation of conflicting groups could barely agree on who was in charge, much less what policies to pursue. Now the huge rallies have given them at least a physical pursuit, even if a unifying philosophy is still a distant dream.

"Anyone in politics must have his priorities," Djindjic told TIME last week. "My priority is to have support in Serbia. The other is to have support in the West." An impish smile spread across his face. "Sometimes," he added, "these priorities conflict."

For the moment, however, there are the protests. Over the past three weeks, the demonstrators seemed to be simultaneously flinging a gauntlet in the face of a hated regime and giddily indulging in a long-overdue chance to lampoon it. They banged spoons on plates to emphasize the depth of Serbia's economic malaise. They marched in front of the state-run TV network holding their noses "because the lies stink so much." They sprayed parliament with detergent (to symbolize the need to clean up corruption). Even as the winter weather turned from surly to mean, the crowd's numbers--and boldness--burgeoned with each passing day.

In the beginning, Milosevic met the popular outcry with stony silence. He refrained from calling on police and army units to crush the protesters, as he had done in the past. But after nearly two weeks, 32 demonstrators, most of them students, were snatched from their homes in the middle of the night and placed under arrest for "brutal attacks on people's property." Early last week the government slapped a gag on what remained of Serbia's unfettered news media by pulling the plug on B-92, the most popular independent radio station in Belgrade. Yet instead of quelling the rage, these moves seemed only to stoke emotions.

Midway through last week Milosevic's wall of support had begun to crack. On Wednesday, 90 judges signed a letter demanding a re-examination of the annulment rulings. The U.S., which had held back from criticizing Milosevic out of fear of shaking one of the guarantors of the Dayton peace accords, announced that it would carry B-92's coverage on the Voice of America. In London, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott met with Yugoslav Foreign Minister Milan Milutinovic and bluntly demanded that the Serb President honor his commitments to free expression. The message was clear: the White House no longer regards Milosevic as vital to peace in the Balkans.

The pressure on the Serb President intensified dramatically as blue-collar workers, traditionally Milosevic loyalists, began flocking to the Belgrade demonstrators in ever greater numbers. But subtler signs seemed no less threatening to the President's power.

On Tuesday, a group of students found themselves marching past one unit of the 80,000 heavily armed police officers who serve as Milosevic's Praetorian Guard. Would the troops pay them back by administering a thorough drubbing? Unsure of what would happen, the students cautiously flashed a three-fingered salute, a symbol of Serb solidarity. The officers stared at the students, then slowly raised their hands and returned the salute.

By Thursday, the President was ready to back off, and turned to a strategy familiar to any besieged politician: he started promising money. State television announced the introduction of cheaper electricity rates, stepped-up payment of overdue pensions to senior citizens and a reduction in the price of sausage. The government also allowed two small radio stations to resume broadcasting and said Serbia's Supreme Court would review the annulling of the opposition's election victory.

Even though Djindjic denounced the measures as "purely cosmetic" and vowed to keep up the pressure until the President relents, Milosevic's blandishments are likely to have their intended effect--at least for now. Like it or not, Djindjic cannot escape the fact that his supporters are mostly intellectuals and middle-class urbanites. To mount a true challenge to Milosevic, he needs the support of workers in factories and fields. Outside the capital, most of these people get their news from Milosevic's Serbian television, which has largely ignored the protests. This means that although Milosevic may have underestimated his opponents, his regime seems to be in little danger of immediate collapse.

Still, Djindjic has risen as a recognizable factor from the protesters, finally an alternative to Milosevic. Some foreign observers are even calling him Serbia's best hope for rapid democratization. But although his demeanor seems to mirror that of a Western-style politician, it is unclear what lies behind the facade. Indeed, as his star has risen, observers and supporters have struggled to fathom where he stands. Even now, his beliefs remain something of a mystery, if only because Djindjic's rhetoric, behavior and choice of bedfellows offer few clues, none of them firm. "Coalitions in politics," he once remarked to a Belgrade magazine, "are like a fresh marriage on the brink of divorce."

Perhaps the most accurate statement that can be made about him is that he is almost entirely a political pragmatist for whom no alliance is unbreakable. Many who have watched him closely suspect that he holds only one thing dear: power. The fact that precisely the same observation has been made of Milosevic may well indicate that both men are cut from the same cloth.

All this complicates Serbia's longer-term picture and its political stability. Milosevic may have held the day, but "he has shown himself to be weaker than we imagined," says Sonja Biserko, director of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia. "For the first time, it is evident that he is not here forever." Foreign observers agree. "I think this may be the beginning of the end for Milosevic," says a diplomat in Belgrade.

That may have the ring of wishful thinking. Milosevic must be doing some cold calculating just now. If the protests do not shrivel in the cold or succumb to his allurements, he could yet be compelled to choose between two options, delineated by the two brands of revolution that took place in Eastern Europe. The "Prague way" offers him a chance to step down peacefully, handing over power along the lines of Czechoslovakia's "velvet revolution" of 1989. Or he can take the "Bucharest way," pioneered later that year by Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, who tried to use force to resist change. In late December, Ceausescu and his wife were driven from the capital and hunted down. And on Christmas Day, they were executed.

--Reported by Massimo Calabresi and Aleksandra Niksic/Belgrade, Bruce Crumley/Paris and Dean Fischer/Washington

With reporting by MASSIMO CALABRESI AND ALEKSANDRA NIKSIC/ BELGRADE, BRUCE CRUMLEY/PARIS AND DEAN FISCHER/WASHINGTON