YUGOSLAVIA: The Opposition

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The first session of the Skupstina (National Assembly) at Belgrade was as stormy as an agitated hornets' nest. Premier Nicolai Pashitch and his colleagues had, some time before, been pained to discover that Stefan Raditch's Croatian Party, which they had tried to outlaw,— was 67 strong in the Skupstina. A committee was formed to decide the legality of the election of the 67; and its decision (declaring 61 of them illegal) passed its first reading in the Chamber. It was this that caused fury to be unfurled.

Ex-Premier Lubomir Davidovitch, representing the majority (all except the Communist and Raditch parties) Opposition, made a bold plea for a strictly constitutional monarchy, national unity and local government—a bold plea because it directly opposed the Serbs, who regard Yugo-Slavia as Greater Serbia instead of a Union of the South Slavs. At present, the government is highly centralized and largely in the hands of the Serbs. He vigorously attacked the Government for its questionable election tactics and advocated "greater electoral freedom for the people." At the same time, he disassociated himself from those parties (Communist and Croatian Peasants'*who had foreign affiliations.

Later in the debate on the annulment of the 61 Croatian seats, Deputy Bazala, Raditch partisan, delivered himself of a speech in Croatian. Serbian howls rent the Chamber. He declared that Deputies sat in the Chamber who had been elected by the Government and not by the people—but he got no farther. An irate Government Deputy hit him on the head and began a fist fight of prolonged duration which was finally stopped by the intervention of gendarmes.