the weakest link

Serb politics

A close call in Serbia
Jan 21st 2008
From Economist.com

Beware the nationalists

AFP
A MAN whose nickname is the “gravedigger” has won the first round of the Serbian presidential elections. Tomislav Nikolic, who gained some 39% of votes in the poll on Sunday January 20th, has this nickname because he used to manage a municipal cemetery. It is grimly appropriate for another reason. The founder and leader of his Serbian Radical Party, Vojislav Seselj, is currently on trial at the UN's war-crimes tribunal in The Hague for murder and “ethnic cleansing” during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, including the persecution of non-Serbs in Vojvodina, in northern Serbia.

Boris Tadic, the current president, came second in the poll with 35%. A strongly pro-Western candidate, he argues that Serbia’s only future lies in joining the European Union (EU). A gaggle of other candidates picked up the rest of the votes: what their voters choose to do next will decide who wins the election.

Yesterday's result was widely predicted: all the polls had foreseen that Mr Nikolic would win and that no candidate would get over the 50% threshold to win outright. But nobody had foreseen the high turnout, some 61%, was far more than expected. The unseasonably clement weather played a role, but it also appears that voters understood how much is at stake.

Soon Kosovo, which almost all Serbs regard as the cradle of their civilisation, will declare independence with the blessing of America and most EU countries. Some 90% of its population is now ethnic Albanian. Since the end of the war there in 1999 it has been under the jurisdiction of the UN. Technical problems remain but the UN intends, in effect, to hand over the reins to the EU.

If this happens, argues Mr Nikolic, Serbia should abandon its attempt to join the EU. Mr Tadic says that, regrettable as Kosovo's independence may be, Serbia would still have no other reasonable choice but to join the EU. Some Serbs note that Norway, Switzerland and Iceland are not members of the EU and are doing just fine. The difference is that they are amongst the richest countries on the planet while Serbia ranks amongst the poorest in Europe. The country needs the EU, but in recent debates some seem to have persuaded themselves that the EU's 27 members want to join Serbia, not the other way around.

To a great extent Mr Nikolic's party has abandoned the Greater Serbia rhetoric of the past. But, unlike the Croatian Democratic Union, which leads the government in neighbouring Croatia, the Serbian Radicals have not gone through a period of modernisation and of purging the worst, extreme nationalist, criminal-linked elements of the party in a bid to recreate themselves as a modern European Christian-Democratic style movement.

The second round of the polls on February 3rd will be a rerun of the presidential election of 2004. In the first round Mr Nikolic also beat Mr Tadic, but in the second round enough voters from the other candidates swung behind the moderate. At the weekend there were nine candidates. Given basic party allegiances Mr Tadic should probably win. However it is not clear that voters will transfer so simply. For example many supporters of Ceda Jovanovic, who won 5.6% and who is the only Serbian leader to argue that Serbia would be better off without Kosovo, may not bother to vote for Mr Tadic.

On paper the president is not terribly important, but the incumbent has influence. Mr Tadic is also the leader of the larger party in government with Vojislav Kostunica, the prime minister. Mr Nikolic is the acting leader of the largest party in parliament. Thus the job is more important than its description. Some voters will be swayed by what Mr Kostunica says. He may ask voters to cast their ballots for Mr Tadic, his coalition partner, which would improve his chances of winning but would not guarantee it. If he does not, then the coalition could collapse and Mr Nikolic may not only become president but his party may enter government in coalition with Mr Kostunica.

If that were to happen then Serbia's EU bid would stall and the country would risk heading back into the isolation it suffered during the 1990s. Embittered and egged-on by Russia, which promises to invest in the country, Serbia nonetheless could not play the role that Cuba played in the cold war. But it might possibly become a new Belarus, on the edge of the EU but determined to face eastwards.

Istok ili Zapad


Ekstremni nacionalista pobedio je u prvom krugu prekjučerašnjih predsedničkih izbora u Srbiji i povećao izglede da zemlja upadne u međunarodnu izolaciju i da se produbi postojeći konflikt na Balkanu zbog najave donošenja deklaracije o nezavisnosti Kosova. Imajući u vidu rešenost albanskog rukovodstva južne pokrajine da proglasi nezavisnost za nekoliko nedelja, mogući gubitak regiona na koji srpski nacionalisti gledaju kao na svetinju pomogao je, izgleda, Tomislavu Nikoliću iz ekstremne Srpske radikalne stranke da pobedi prozapadno orijentisanog i umerenog političara i aktuelnog predsednika Srbije Borisa Tadića s četiri odsto više glasova.
Nikolić je osvojio 39, a Tadić 35 odsto glasova na ovim važnim izborima, koji bi mogli da odrede da li će se Srbija okrenuti prema istoku, u ponuđeno naručje Rusije, ili Zapadu, prema evropskoj integraciji. Nikolić, ekstremni nacionalista koji se u ratu u bivšoj Jugoslaviji 90-ih godina prošlog veka borio u paravojnim formacijama i bio u službi pokojnog predsednika Slobodana Miloševića, mogao bi ipak da bude poražen, jer je mnogo birača, pri čemu je izlaznost bila velika - više od 60 odsto, glasalo za prozapadno orijentisane demokrate.
Međutim, Nikolić može lakše da mobiliše svoju podršku i da obezbedi pobedu u drugom krugu. Pobedu Nikolića i radikala, čijem se vođi Vojislavu Šešelju trenutno sudi u Haškom tribunalu za ratne zločine, Zapadna Evropa će dočekati kao katastrofu i ozbiljan udarac politici EU prema Balkanu.
U pokušaju da poveća Tadićeve šanse, Brisel je prošle nedelje saopštio da će započeti pregovore o ukidanju šengenskih viza Srbima za putovanja po Evropi. Nekoliko zemalja članica EU želi da se s Beogradom potpiše predugovor o članstvu pre kraja ovog meseca, da bi se pomoglo Tadiću da pobedi u drugom krugu izbora. Ali, neke zemlje članice EU oštro se protive tome i zahtevaju da glavni srpski optuženici za ratne zločine budu uhapšeni i isporučeni Hagu, kao uslov za članstvo u EU.
Dejvid Miliband, britanski ministar inostranih poslova, sastao se prošlog vikenda sa svojim kolegama iz Francuske, Nemačke i Italije da bi razmotrili kako i kada će priznati nezavisnost Kosova. Premijer Kosova Hašim Tači treba ove nedelje u Briselu da uskladi svoju politiku s EU. On je prihvatio da se proglašenje nezavisnosti Kosova odloži do posle izbora u Srbiji. Proglašenje se očekuje za šest nedelja.
Ključni saveznik Srbije, ruski predsednik Vladimir Putin, posetio je Balkan prošlog petka i objavio da će svako jednostrano proglašenje Kosova biti "nelegalno i nemoralno".
Ishod druge runde izbora u Srbiji mogao bi da zavisi od toga kako srpski premijer Vojislav Koštunica bude savetovao svoje pristalice da glasaju. Koštunica je žestoko nacionalistički nastrojen, u stalnoj je borbi za vlast s Tadićem i nepopustljiv kad je reč o Kosovu. Tadiću bi mogli biti potrebni glasovi pristalica premijera da bi pobedio u drugom krugu izbora. D. S.