Serbia's 'Jackie Kennedy' takes on political legacy

Letter from Belgrade:Pitied for her public suffering, admired for her dignity and style, the soubriquet of "Serbia's Jackie Kennedy" has stuck fast to Ruzica Djindjic.

She is the widow of a man who was the closest Serbia has had to a JFK - bright, determined, charismatic, and cut down in his prime by an assassin's bullet.

Like the killing of Kennedy, the death of Zoran Djindjic ripped a hole in the political life of a nation that has yet to be filled.

Last Sunday, nearly four years after he died along with hopes for swift reform, his widow stepped into the macho arena of Serb politics - as number one on the list of candidates for the Democratic Party that he founded and which, after finishing second to the ultra-nationalist Radicals, is now leading talks to form a liberal ruling coalition.

The ghost of Zoran Djindjic loomed large over the ballot, his name evoked by anyone claiming to represent modern, liberal values in a nation deeply scarred by the years of war, isolation and poverty into which it was led by Slobodan Milosevic.

But no one can conjure memories of Djindjic like his widow and the mother of his two teenage children.

Her face was burned into the national consciousness on March 12th, 2003, when cameras caught her emerging, grief-stricken, from the hospital where he had just died, after being felled outside the government building by a sniper allegedly hired by old allies of Milosevic, who feared the crime-fighting pledges of the new regime. Ruzica was at Zoran's graveside in Belgrade last week, again pursued by television cameras, and accompanied by former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder. "For me, Serbia and Belgrade will forever be linked with the name of my great friend, Zoran Djindjic," Schröder said.

"The vision of Zoran Djindjic is being carried on by Boris Tadic, Ruzica Djindjic and by Bozidar Djelic." Tadic is Serbia's president and Djelic, who served as finance minister in Djindjic's reformist government, is now the Democrat most likely to become prime minister if his party can emerge victorious from the tricky coalition talks.

When Ruzica Djindjic was named at the top of the party's list of candidates, Serbia buzzed with speculation that she might follow her late husband as premier - laying the foundations for a political dynasty and striking a blow against the chauvinism still rife in patriarchal Serbian society.

"I said that as a woman. . . I would be ready to accept that challenge," the 46-year-old told a Serb newspaper recently.

"Both the Democratic Party and I believe in the principle of gender equality and the ability of women to lead this society. However, I have not been thinking about that position, and I haven't talked about it with President Tadic." Many women are involved in Serb politics but, at the highest level, they are still usually seen as an adornment on the arm of a powerful man, or as a sinister manipulator such as Mira Markovic, who was dubbed "Lady Macbeth" for the malign influence she was believed to have had over her husband, Milosevic.

"Women have a say in parties with a more liberal approach, but in the conservative parties it is very hard for women to have a strong role - it is seen as being against Serbian traditions and the laws of society," said Dragan Popovic, executive director of the Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Belgrade.

And many Serbs dismissed Ruzica Djindjic as little more than a campaign mascot used by the Democratic Party to remind voters of its link to her husband.

"She's useful because the party wants to be seen as a continuation of Djindjic's time and ideas, not because it wants to deal with gender issues," said Srdjan Bogosavljevic of Belgrade's Strategic Marketing polling agency. "And there is no way she is going to be in the next cabinet."

The government now under construction will lead Serbs towards the EU or into deeper poverty and isolation; it will be pushed to accept the independence of Kosovo and catch war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic. With so much on its plate, it certainly won't take on another major challenge - giving Serbs their first woman leader.

"Serb women seem to prefer to work in the shadows, and not expose themselves as much as men," says Gordana Rajkov who, having returned to her homeland after spending several years in Ireland, is poised to become Serbia's first disabled member of parliament. "The men always take the main positions, of prime minister and president," she says. "And that's not about to change right now."