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PP RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHDA RUEHDBU RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA
RUEHLN RUEHLZ RUEHNP RUEHPOD RUEHROV RUEHSK RUEHSL RUEHSR RUEHVK
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DE RUEHBW #0719/01 2031434
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P R 221436Z JUL 09
FM AMEMBASSY BELGRADE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0089
INFO EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC
RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
RUEHBW/AMEMBASSY BELGRADE
RUZEJAA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BELGRADE 000719 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
DEPT FOR EUR/SCE (P. PETERSON) 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL SR
SUBJECT: SERBIA: JAGODINA MAYOR PALMA RAISES PROFILE ON NATIONAL 
STAGE 
 
REF: BELGRADE 511 
 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Over the past year, Dragan Markovic "Palma," founder and 
president of United Serbia (JS), has emerged as an increasingly 
prominent voice on the national scene.  Leveraging his success as 
mayor of Jagodina and developing his friendship with Socialist Party 
of Serbia (SPS) President Ivica Dacic, Palma has maneuvered himself 
into an influential position within the national-level SPS-led 
coalition where he has sought to establish himself as a spokesman for 
Western values.  Palma's reinvention of himself from militant 
nationalist to a selectively pro-Western politician reflects a 
pragmatic calculation that sees Serbia's political and economic 
future with Europe.  End Summary. 
 
 
Colorful Mayor and "Contemporary" of Beethoven 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
¶2.    (SBU) Dragan Markovic "Palma," the heavy-set, bald, kick-boxing 
mayor of Jagodina, continues to win ratings as Serbia's most popular 
mayor and is an instantly recognizable personality nationwide.  Mayor 
of the mid-sized Central Serbian municipality of Jagodina (population 
roughly 85,000) since the 1990s, Palma presided over his city's 
economic boom on a model of extensive public expenditure and 
thinly-disguised authoritarian rule.  Palma made his fortune through 
monopolies on mining and the illicit oil trade in the 1990s when he 
was an associate of the late organized crime figure and 
Hague-indicted war criminal Zeljko Raznatovic "Arkan."  Palma served 
as a colonel in Arkan's notorious paramilitary group "Tigers" and 
later represented Arkan's political party in Parliament. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Today, Palma literally buys public support through an 
extensive social safety net that offers tax-free cash payments to 
citizens who fall into a range of categories, including as couples 
who marry in Jagodina, bear children (up to ?200 monthly per child 
for those who have four or more children), guaranteed wages for 
recent high school graduates, handouts for Roma, and many others.  In 
addition to maintaining city services and renovating downtown 
Jagodina, Palma built tourist attractions-including a wax museum, 
aqua park, and zoo-which draw in about 15,000 tourists monthly and 
are accessible to local citizens at reduced fees.  Though Palma told 
us that the funds for these expenditures came from local revenues and 
less than 10% of the city's budget depends on transfer payments from 
Belgrade, it is widely suspected that Palma's business interests and 
suspect financial sources fill gaps in the city budget.  Part of 
Palma's lucrative business empire includes Palma TV, a nationwide 
channel that also provides him an outlet to exert influence through 
the media. 
 
¶4.    (SBU) Palma's appeal is enhanced by his ability to communicate 
with the less-educated, peasant sections of Serbia's population.  For 
example, while discussing his role in the June local elections in 
Vozdovac and Zemun (Ref), Palma told us over coffee that voters 
realized that he knew how to build roads, markets, and toilets better 
than the rival Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) because SNS President 
Tomislav Nikolic "never knew how to make a quality toilet." 
 
¶5. (SBU) This confident folksiness occasionally leads to gaffes 
(often captured on YouTube), such as Palma's assertion last year that 
all great musicians performed for him in Jagodina, and that he would 
have had Mozart and Beethoven perform for him as well had he not been 
so young at the time.  On a separate occasion Palma said he could 
guarantee there were no homosexuals in Jagodina "because I personally 
know all the men in Jagodina and none of them is gay."  (Palma 
described these anecdotes to us as his "pearls.")  Palma told us in 
June that his popularity is mostly the product of his connection with 
constituents who reelected him last year with over 93% of votes cast, 
adding with a chuckle, that this was "an even better result than that 
achieved by Saddam Hussein." 
 
 
Influential Partner with Socialists 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶6.     (SBU) Despite his penchant for eyebrow-raising comments, Palma 
has proven to be a cool political calculator who has positioned 
himself as a key voice in the Socialist-led SPS-PUPS-JS coalition on 
the national level.  While United Serbia was formed in 2004 as a 
nationalist party and ran on the DSS list as late as 2007, Palma read 
the political tea leaves and switched to the SPS list in the May 2008 
parliamentary elections, winning three seats and joining the 
 
BELGRADE 00000719  002 OF 002 
 
 
governing coalition.  Palma's first few months in the governing 
coalition were marred by revelations that he secured roughly $400,000 
from the national budget for Jagodina, including a widely-ridiculed 
purchase of a giraffe for the local zoo.  Palma nonetheless 
established himself as a prominent Socialist bloc spokesman on a 
number of controversial issues, including this spring's 
Anti-Discrimination Law and was given responsibility by Dacic to 
design the platform for the SPS-led bloc to use in its negotiations 
this month with the SNS in the Zemun and Vozdovac municipalities. 
Palma's annual saint's day (slava) celebration in July-which 
traditionally includes a kickboxing match and featured a performance 
by controversial folk singer (and Arkan widow) Ceca Raznatovic-was 
attended this year by President Tadic, SPS president (and close Palma 
friend) Ivica Dacic, Diaspora Minister Srdjan Sreckovic, Belgrade 
Assembly president Aleksandar Antic, Nafta Industrija Srbija (NIS) 
executives, and diplomatic representatives from the UK, Slovenia, 
Bulgaria, and our Embassy. 
 
 
Turning Toward the West 
----------------------- 
 
¶7.     (SBU) Since joining the governing coalition last year, Palma 
has attempted to distance himself from his earlier nationalist 
rhetoric to become an advocate for Serbia's European integration and 
good relations with the United States.  In October 2008 during the 
DCM's visit to Jagodina, Palma announced his support for the EULEX 
mission in Kosovo during a sensitive time in negotiations between 
Belgrade and Brussels.  Palma told us in June that Vice President 
Biden's visit to Belgrade signified a positive turning point in 
Serbia's relations with the United States and emphasized his 
continued commitment to close cooperation with the United States.  At 
a subsequent event featuring a U.S. company, Palma expounded on these 
points publicly and lauded his personal cooperation with our Embassy. 
 (His pro-American rhetoric was followed by an awkward, passionate 
non-sequitur in which he declared that Serbia would never recognize 
Kosovo.)  Palma told us privately that Serbia needed to define its 
future in close cooperation with the United States because Russia had 
historically "walked all over us" and that Russian foreign policy and 
investments would never have Serbia's interests at heart. 
 
¶8.     (SBU) In his conversations with us, Palma has not denied his 
earlier connections with Arkan but argues that he is now an advocate 
for anti-nationalist European values.  Evoking images of Arkan's 
"Tigers," Palma sports a stuffed tiger in his office, named his 
Jagodina-based kick-boxing team "Palma's Tigers," and admitted to the 
DCM that Arkan had committed crimes against Bosniaks and Croats in 
the 1990s "because they were committing crimes against us." Palma 
insisted to us that he is now firmly against militant Serbian 
nationalism and that he emphatically tells his followers that 
"militant nationalism serves no one. Period."  Preferring to call 
himself an "economic patriot," Palma said that Serbia today needed 
more economic nationalism.  However, the economic crisis in Serbia 
threatened to give rise to dangerous, pro-Russia sentiment mostly via 
the SNS and Nikolic, whom Palma described as a retrograde nationalist 
incapable of distancing himself from Radical ideology. 
 
Comment 
-------- 
 
¶9.     (SBU) Palma is an autocratic personality whose control of 
Jagodina resembles that of a populist tyrant.  However, Palma is 
seeking to cast himself as a pro-American politician while 
occasionally making gaffes that undermine his credibility in that 
endeavor.  Palma's calculated attempt to transform himself from an 
Arkan associate to a Western-oriented political figure demonstrates 
the appeal of Serbia's European path among those in the rural Serbian 
heartland.  Should that appeal erode in the wake of the economic 
crisis, the supremely pragmatic Palma would likely be among the first 
in the SPS coalition to voice misgivings and change his tune again. 
End Comment. 
BRUSH