UNMIK ON AIR
08 January 2004
SERBIA’S ELLECTION
(By Zoran Culafic)
Radicals celebrating in a Belgrade pub after their elections victory last week, singing the old tunes that spread so much fear among the different nations of FY during the 90ties.
Serbia’s Radical party, lead by Vojislav Seselj, presently being tried for war crimes at The Hague Tribunal, won the majority of votes during last weeks parliamentary elections in Serbia & Montenegro
Described by the western media as ultra nationalists, Seselj’s radicals succeeded -three years after their ally Slobodan Milosevic was ousted- in becoming the strongest single party in Serbia; yet not strong enough to form a government.
The Radical Party’s victory generated great concern in the West and particularly in the neighboring countries – mainly because of the pre-election nationalistic and populist rhetoric. One of the Radical Party’s most often repeated pre-election massage was that Serbia’s western borders would be in Croatia, on the Karlovac-Karlobag-Ogulin-Virovitica line– the same message sent by Vojislav Seselj in the early 90’s when the war in Croatia started. President of Croatia, Mr. Stjepan Mesic says that such messages we’re wrongly used to achieve the electoral victory and he adds
Stjepan Mesic: the borders cannot and dare not be changed. Time will refute those who tried by certain means to solve internal issues in Serbia.
It was expected that Seselj's radicals would gain a significant number of seats in Serbia's parliament, but it seems that many in Belgrade were caught off guard when it was reported that, out of 250 members of the new parliament, Seselj would have around 82 - a convincing majority, compared to the number of seats other pro-democratic political parties gained.
Nevertheless, no single party has publicly declared its will to form a coalition government with the radicals. Rather, on the contrary, all parties, including Vuk Draskovic's and Milosevic's party stated that any coalition with the Radical Party is unlikely to happen.
Forming a Government in Serbia is still a big dilemma. Vojislav Kostunica, head of the Democratic Party of Serbia believes the main issue would be adopting a new Constitution, which could be only done with the clear majority of two thirds of the parliament members. During the pre elections campaign Kostunica strongly opposed any coalition with the radicals, but now it seems he could change his mind.
Vojislav Kostunica: You
remember that I gave some statements during the pre election campaign,
regarding the cooperation with other parties, and that was according to our
party’s program and policy. This will have an impact on the Party’s Main Board
when taking the decision, but surely the decision will be made according to new
relevant facts. I believe we are closer to forming a new government then to new
elections.
Meanwhile radicals have offered Kostunica to form the government together and they are still waiting for an answer. There aren’t any other options on the table right now says Toma Nikolic, Vice President of the Serbian Radical Party and emphasizes that it would be impossible to change the Constitution without the radicals.
Toma Nikolic: It is
important that we do have one third of the seats in the parliament so those who
want to change the Constitution without us should just forget about it.
Despite the Radical party's success, many analysts in Belgrade believe that Serbia is not in direct danger of abandoning the path towards becoming part of the European Union, but almost everyone does agree that 2004 will be a year of major political challenges for Serbia.
The problem, according to Belgrade Media seems to be the fact that pro-democratic parties are being alienated; moreover they have been fighting each other for the past three years, instead of creating a common platform for political and economical reforms. Therefore, the establishment of an efficient and stabile Government doesn’t seem to be any closer.
Boris Tadic, leader of late Zoran Djindjic’s Democratic party is aware of the deep political crisis in Serbia; he says, the Democratic Party, will support any pro democratic government plans to continue reforms in Serbia.
Boris Tadic: On these elections the electoral body was so divided
that it would be very difficult now to form a stable government. We are not
excluding support to a minority government, but we are not supporting it a
priori, not knowing the program the continuation of the reforms in Serbia is
the condition “sine qua non” for us to give support to any government.
Europe has already sent a massage to Belgrade, urging the pro-democratic parties to form the coalition and prevent radicals from taking Serbia's rudder.
However, many analysts in Belgrade claim that the radicals did win the elections, but the fact still remains that the electoral body in Serbia did not change that much – Seselj’s radicals and Milosevic’s socialist party won around a million votes, around the same figure they gathered in the days when Milosevic was in power, while pro democratic parties won all-together over 2,4 million votes.
Biljana Kovacevic Vuco, head of Belgrade’s based NGO YUCOM, believes that Serbia is not in any direct danger. The problem, she explains, is that reforms are very slow, and even the radicals are aware that their pre-election rhetoric was just a one-day gig and no one can push Serbia, off the road to Europe now.
Biljana Kovacevic Vuco: No
one will be able to embrace any policy of isolation in the future. I’m quite
sure that any government will find a way to cooperate with The Hague Tribunal
and, excuse me, but the radicals did cooperate with the Hague Tribunal. They
did not make any trouble when Seselj surrendered voluntarily, and what better
way of cooperation is there than that. Seselj traveled to The Hague and for
example there were bigger problems when Sljivancanin was arrested. I don’t
believe that anyone could get in power here and not cooperate with the Hague,
and that’s common ground.
Minority parties in Serbia did not enter the parliament, although many of them formed some coalitions in order to reach the elections census of 5 percent to get seats in the Assembly. Jozef Kasa, vice president of the Government of Serbia and leader of the Union of Vojvodina’s Hungarian party claims that it is not a positive sign that even though the coalition was named - List for tolerance, the minorities did not gain support from Serbia’s electorate.
Jozef Kasa: If in the
capital, in Belgrade, just 0,5 percent of citizens are supporting the List for
tolerance, then that fact tells alone very much. The same goes for the central
part of Serbia, where just 1,5 percent of citizens is supporting a tolerance.
The raise of the radicals was not praised amongst Kosovo Serb political leaders and many high ranking Belgrade officials, like Nebojsa Covic himself, did not enter the parliament. Oliver Ivanovic, member of Kosovo Asembly.
Oliver Ivanovic: The
fact that radicals and Milosevic’s party won so many seats in Serbia’s
parliament is a big warning for the Serbian citizens, but also for the international
community. These parties bear huge responsibility for what has happened here. I
fear that such election results would be used by some circles in the
international community as well as by Kosovo Albanians to strengthen the
pressure on Serbia to accept a final solution that is not suitable for us.
So the cards have been laid on the table and now it’s a matter of time to see who makes the next move, which is expected to happen sometime by the end of this week. The question still running around the streets of Belgrade is, if whom ever forms the government is actually ready for the challenges ahead.
That was all for this edition of UNMIK on Air. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for more.