Spirit of '89 Revolutions Rumbles in the Balkans

*Bulgarians have been holding massive street demonstrations in cities across the country for more than two weeks, demanding early elections that the ruling Socialist Party would certainly lose. The renamed Communist Party has ruled Bulgaria for all but a few months since 1989, avoiding difficult economic reforms while allegedly stealing state assets in massive corruption schemes in the financial and trade sectors.

Meanwhile, the economy has reached the verge of collapse, with 310-percent inflation, bread shortages, and mass impoverishment. Whoever governs Bulgaria in the next few months will have to undertake difficult economic reforms to avoid a total collapse, sources say, but these could trigger more widespread popular demonstrations.

*Serbia's demonstrations have continued for two months, with hundreds of thousands of people on the streets demanding that local elections results (which the opposition won) be restored. The huge demonstrations appear to be succeeding, with President Slobodan Milosevic's regime reendorsing local elections in the capital, Belgrade, and other major cities. Now protesters appear to be demanding Mr. Milosevic's ouster.

The demonstrators are motivated by personal economic peril, a desire for greater democracy, and a more normalized relationship with the West. However, the protesters generally have not taken Milosevic to task for his central role in the prosecution of two wars of aggression and the Bosnian genocide - a fact not lost on Bosnians and Croats.

*Croatia is ruled not by former Communists, but by a similarly corrupt nationalist government headed by Franjo Tudjman. Once seemingly invincible, Mr. Tudjman's Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ) party has been losing public support since the end of the Yugoslav wars.

"People are growing tired of corruption and authoritarianism," says political commentator Zarko Puhovski in Zagreb, the capital. "The regime's time is limited."

When Mr. Tudjman tried to shut down the last free radio station in Zagreb in November, 100,000 protesters marched in the capital. The HDZ fared badly in local elections last year. Now with Tudjman reportedly in poor health, most analysts expect more-liberal political forces to make big gains in this year's general elections.

*Romania's recent political change is in many ways the most dramatic, although it was effected at ballot boxes, not in the streets.

In elections Nov. 3, Romanians voted out the neo-Communist government of Ion Illiescu in favor of a coalition of liberal democrats. Since coming to power a few weeks ago, President Emil Constantinescu has implemented difficult price increases, launched a war on corruption, and purged many officials who came into office during Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's long reign.

Mr. Illiescu came to power under mysterious circumstances during the 1989 revolution, and Mr. Constantinescu has promised to investigate and reveal the truth about the uprising, in which hundreds were killed.

"It's hard to say how things will turn out, but one thing's for sure," says Ognian Avramov, adviser to outgoing Bulgarian President Zhelu Zhelav. "It will be very difficult [for a government] to continue with business as usual as long as the protesters remain in the streets."

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