The Hindu : Karnataka News : Extremists ahead in Serbian poll

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 10, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Karnataka

Karnataka

Extremists ahead in Serbian poll

Ian Traynor

Likely to form coalition with Kostunica

Serbia goes to the polls on Sunday in the most bitterly contested election of its young democracy, with the Prime Minister accusing the President of treason and preparing to head a government that turns its back on the rest of Europe.

The parliamentary and local elections are the first since the southern Albanian-majority province of Kosovo seceded from Serbia, declared independence in February and won recognition from the U.S. and two-thirds of the European Union.

All the signs are that the increasingly nationalist and anti-E.U. Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica will emerge on Sunday night in a king-making position and opt to form a government with extremists headed by an international war crimes suspect.

In advance of the crucial poll, European leaders are interfering as seldom before in an election in a non-E.U. country.

In a probably futile bid to swing the election for the pro-European democrats of President Boris Tadic, Brussels signed a pre-E.U. membership agreement with Belgrade and offered quick and free visas for almost all Serbs to travel to the E.U. A European commissioner, Jacques Barrot, told the Serbs this week that their isolation in Europe was a thing of the past.

But most analysts believe that Sunday’s election will return Serbia to the isolation of the 1990s under Slobodan Milosevic, who was overthrown eight years ago.

Ever since that revolution, says Ivan Vejvoda of the Balkan Trust for Democracy in Belgrade, every parliamentary and presidential election has resulted in victory, if narrow, for pro-European forces. But given the impact of the Kosovo breakaway and Kostounica’s rejection of the E.U. and his turn to Russia, the pattern looks like being broken.

A British government-funded survey this week found the extremist Radical party, whose leader, Vojislav Seselj, is a former warlord on trial for war crimes in The Hague, on 32 per cent, with Mr. Tadic’s democrats on 31 per cent. Mr. Kostounica’s Democratic party of Serbia was on 10 per cent.

Tomislav Nikolic, who is leading the Radicals while Seselj is absent, hinted at Mr. Kostounica being allowed to remain Prime Minister.

“I cannot say that Kostounica will not be Prime Minister. I would not consider saying that during the campaign to a person I wished to form a coalition with,” said Mr. Nikolic.

He added that mr. Seselj, who has a reputation for violence, would join the government if acquitted in The Hague, and argued that Milosevic’s biggest failing in the Yugoslav wars of the 90s was not being tough enough against Serbia’s enemies.

Mr. Kostounica and Mr. Tadic’s democrats have run Serbia in coalition for most of the last eight years, but at his final rally on Wednesday Mr. Tadic said Mr. Kostounica would never again be Prime Minister.

“There are those who build their aims on fear. We need great courage to achieve our national aims. No fear can stop us from reaching our goals, and that goal is Serbia in Europe,” mr. Tadic told a crowd in Belgrade.

Mr. Kostounica went to Kosovo on Wednesday to rally support among the minority Serbs. “Kosovo belongs to Serbia and the Serb nation. This is how it has been, and how it shall be,” he declared. He accused Mr. Tadic of “treason” for signing the agreement with Brussels, arguing that the president forfeited Serbia’s claim to Kosovo.

Belgrade has also organised local elections on Sunday among the Serbian minority in Kosovo to strengthen its claim and entrench a de facto partition of the territory. The U.N., the E.U., and the Kosovan government denounce the planned poll as illegal, but will do nothing to stop it. “We are talking about propaganda to show that Kosovo is Serbian property,” said Veton Surroi, a Kosovo Albanian leader. “Tensions will only rise unnecessarily, violence could occur.” — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka