Balkan Politics

The recent Yugo-Slavian elections demand a closer inspection than the mere tabulation of results. This is the first Parliament to be elected in the new State of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes since the elections for the provisional Constituent Assembly in November, 1920, and is therefore of some importance in Balkan politics.

Pashitch, Premier of the last legislature, made an ostensibly sweeping victory in the parliamentary elections by capturing 120 seats out of a possible 318, which will form the new Assembly (Narodna Skupshtina). His program is to strengthen . the unity of the State, now threatened by a separationist movement by Croatia; to improve further relations with Bulgaria; to keep a watchful eye on the Magyars; and to make Yugo- slavia the strongest military power in the Balkans. This is not a peaceful policy, and success is purely hallucinatory.

Pashitch is Serbia's veteran politician and chiefly remembered in Western Europe for his connection with the arch-schemer Venizelos in forming the Balkan League. Pashitch was formerly a radical, but since his rise to power he has been gradually forced to relinquish his radical tendencies in favor of conservatism.

The greatest man on the opposition is Radich, the radical peasant leader, or leader of the Croatian Agrarians. He if in favor of the separation of Croatia from the rest of Yugoslavia and setting his country up as an independent republic. His success not only in Croatia but in Dalmatia and Slavonia has alarmed the Government. In the last elections his party secured 49 votes, whereas, when the full returns from the present elections have been received, it is expected that he will have secured more than 70 votes.

The election campaign throws light on the measures adopted by the Gov- ernment to suppress unwelcome factions. In the first instance, the Magyars, unwillingly incorporated into Yugo-Slavia; together with hundreds of Turks and Macedonian voters, were swept off the voters' list. Next, opposition manifestoes were confiscated by the Government and unfavorable newspapers suppressed Lastly, the whole gendarmerie was combed out before the elections and reduced as far as possible to the faithful supporters of the Government.