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Election Results Spoil Serbia's Drive Toward Europe
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Supporters of the SRP greet their leader Tomislav Nikolic in Belgrade (AFP)
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BELGRADE,
December 29 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The election of
ultra-nationalists and war criminals including former President
Slobodan Milosevic to the Serbian parliament could complicate the
country's progress toward Europe after what is seen as a public
national disaster for the west-central Balkan country.
The
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said
Monday, December 29, it was "disappointed" with the
electoral success of nationalists and war crimes suspects and called
for the rapid formation of a new democratic alliance, said Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
War
crimes indictees Vojislav Seselj and Slobodan
Milosevic ,
the former Yugoslav President accused of committing crimes during the
bloody Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, were elected to the parliament
from their prison cells near The Hague.
Both
men are facing charges at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The
Netherlands and will not be able to fill their mandates in parliament.
But
the strength of Seselj's Serbian Radical Party (SRB), which will be
the strongest force in the 250-seat assembly after grabbing some 27
percent of the vote in Sunday's election, will worry European
capitals.
The
election means that more than one in four Serbians voted against the
country's cooperation with the U.N. war crimes tribunal, international
financial institutions and liberal European ideas of
democracy-building.
The
Radical Party's victory is a public relations disaster for Serbia,
said the BBC News Online.
The
country's outgoing deputy prime minister, Nebojsa Covic, said voters
had punished the reformist government for failing to raise living
standards.
Preliminary
results showed the SRS to have won a little more than a quarter of the
popular vote, but it is set to take about one-third of the
parliamentary seats.
That
would allow it to block reforms and change the constitution.
Although
the Radicals will not be able to form a government but they will be
"looking over the shoulder", as one European diplomat put
it, of what is expected to be an unsteady governing coalition of
democratic parties.
Within
the four parties most likely to group together to form a majority
there are gaping differences over fundamental issues ranging from the
future of the U.N.-administered province of Kosovo, the E.U.-backed
union with Montenegro, cooperation with the war crimes tribunal and
the pace of economic reform.
Collapse
With Rancor
European
diplomats said there was a risk that the government could collapse in
rancor and infighting and new elections could be necessary within a
year if reformers fail to resolve differences.
"If
there is a kind of grand coalition it would have the same risk as the
previous government (infighting)," the OSCE ambassador to Serbia
and Montenegro, Maurizio Massari, said.
"One
possible scenario that should not be completely ruled out is that they
won't be able to form a new government and that would be the worst
scenario".
He
said that could lead to "repeat elections in six months and then
the Radicals could perform very strongly".
Another
diplomat said that the pressure of the nationalist revival in Serbia
meant that even if the reformists manage to form a coalition, the new
government would be "definitely more nationalistic, less amenable
to compromise on issues like the war crimes court and less patient in
its cooperation with the international community".
Cooperation
with the U.N. war crimes tribunal will be one of the first tests of a
new reformist government's strength and sincerity, diplomats said.
Washington
is due to finish a review of Serbia's cooperation with the court in
March which could unlock some 100 million dollars in badly needed aid.
In
exchange it has demanded the arrest of top war crimes suspect Ratko
Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military chief who is allegedly hiding
in Serbia.
Vojislav
Kostunica, a reformist opposition party leader and possible prime
minister in a new government, told AFP he did not believe Mladic was
in Serbia and accused the U.N. court of threatening the
"survival" of the country.
He
said The Hague was "poking fun with justice" and promised to
introduce a new law governing the country's relations with the
tribunal -- effectively slapping a moratorium on arrests and
extraditions for the duration of what could be a long and bitter
debate.
The
second most popular party, according to polls, is the Democratic Party
of Serbia led by Kostunica, who replaced Milosevic as Yugoslav
president in 2000.
Kostunica
has been at odds with supporters of former Prime Minister Zoran
Djindjic, who was assassinated in March, since soon after Milosevic's
overthrow.
But
Kostunica said as he cast his ballot that he expected the elections to
bring political calm to Serbia.
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