Yugoslavia: A History of its Demise - Indymedia

6 FATEFUL WEAKNESSES
pastiche of imprecisions and contradictions. Its most important “father”, Edvard
Kardelj, had conceived it chiefly as an ideological tract concerning selfmanagement.
Viewed politically, it was of great significance, for it attempted to
constitute Yugoslavia as a federal state with democratic outlines, as it would
have functioned if ever the political monopoly of the communist party had been
cast aside. Its core element was the new definition of the republics and provinces
as constituent units of the joint state. The constitution of 1974 pointed rather
unambiguously also in the direction of confederation; it constituted Yugoslavia,
as one of its critics remarked, as a kind of midpoint between federation and
confederation, as a “Yugoslav exception”. 9
In contrast to the earlier constitutions, the constitution of 1974 defined the
republics explicitly as states (Article 3) and made them into independent agents
of political decision-making, who could not be outvoted. Both of the provinces in
union with the Republic of Serbia—Kosovo and Vojvodina—were, indeed, not
defined as states, but were given equality with the republics at the level of the
common state. Both houses of the Yugoslav Federal Assembly (Skupština SFRJe)—the
Federal Chamber (Savezno veće) and the Chamber of Republics and
Provinces (Veće republika i pokrajina)—were in fact bodies representing the
republics and provinces; it is of note that the Federal Chamber did not provide a
direct representation of the citizens. The members of both houses of the Federal
Assembly were appointed by the parliaments of the republics or provinces or by
other republic organs.
Legislative procedure and the procedure in all important affairs were based on
the principle of consensus among the republics and provinces. This signifies,
formulated in reverse, that every republic or province enjoyed a veto right in
practically all affairs of any importance. Even for the Federal Chamber, for
which majority rule had been foreseen, Article 294 10 stipulated in all matters “of
general interest for a republic or province or for the equality of peoples and
nations” a special procedure which, for all practical purposes, provided a veto
right for the republics and provinces. The Chamber of Republics and Provinces,
even in formal terms, expressly represented the parliaments of the republics and
provinces, and in its work it observed the principles of consensus and the
narrowing of differences (uskladjivanje stavova, literally, the harmonization of
viewpoints) between the republics and provinces. In all affairs of importance, the
Federal Chamber and the Chamber of Republics and Provinces were given equal
power. The principle of consensus was moderated solely by the provision for the
possibility of having resort to emergency measures, on which the state
presidency essentially had the last word.
The political leadership organ of the common state was the presidency
(Predsedništvo SFRJ), to which each republic and each province sent a deputy.
As long as Tito lived, he held the post of President of the Republic; afterwards,
the appropriate articles of the Constitution automatically went out of force. The
state presidency was supposed to exercise collective authority over the army.
According to Article 330 of the Constitution, the state presidency should have