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Yugoslavia The Leadership Crisis
A political crisis occurred in late 1988 when Prime Minister
Branko Mikulic resigned under pressure. Mikulic, who had
initiated several austerity programs to reduce rampant inflation,
met general disapproval when his programs produced no immediate
results. He was also implicated in the Agrokomerc scandal of
1987, the most extensive instance of government and financial
corruption in Yugoslavia to that time. In accordance with the
constitutional provisions for resignation, the Mikulic government
remained in office until a new government, headed by Ante
Markovic, was selected in the spring of 1989. Markovic, who had
gained a reputation as an effective economic innovator and
moderate politician in Croatia, drew heavy criticism for refusing
to take drastic anti-inflation measures, and for allowing both
the economy and the Kosovo crisis to worsen in his first year in
office.
Throughout the turbulent debates of the 1980s, the Yugoslav
political system never produced a leader who commanded the
respect of all factions. But by the turn of the decade, an end to
the leadership crisis appeared possible. Markovic, who became
prime minister in 1989, clearly belonged to a generation of
technocrats intermediate between the Tito generation and the
youngest politicians in the country, and some of his economic
policies received strong public criticism. But Markovic made bold
moves toward a Yugoslav market economy in 1990. He received broad
public support when he declared that his government would
function independently of LCY influence, and would be ready for
multiparty elections after the LCY split in 1990. More important
for the long term, a new generation of leaders began to fill
national positions at the end of the 1980s, leaving few figures
from Tito's World War II Partisan circle in power. New faces
included 1989 State President Janez Drnovsek of Slovenia and
Vasil Tupurkovski, a Macedonian member of the Federal Executive
Council. Both in their thirties when elected but with positive
national reputations, Drnovsek and Tupurkovski called
consistently for pragmatic, drastic reform.
Data as of December 1990
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