The surprise that may await Europe Why there is sense in a link-up between the pro-EU victor of Serbia’s elections and the party founded by Slobodan Milosevic.

It seems the EU’s strategy of bolstering Serbia’s reformist parties in their election campaigns has worked: the coalition headed by President Boris Tadic’s Democratic Party (DS) emerged as the clear winner of early parliamentary elections held on 11 May, garnering close to 39% of the vote.

The DS coalition, For a European Serbia, ran a clever and largely positive campaign, crowned last week by the signing of an agreement on a substantial investment by Fiat in Serbia’s national carmaker Zastava; ultimately, though, the DS victory should be seen as a direct result of the EU’s decision to allow the signing of a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with Serbia in the run-up to the vote, a decision taken despite Belgrade’s failure to arrest and hand over to the Hague war-crimes tribunal General Ratko Mladic, the former commander of Bosnian Serb army who is accused of masterminding the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

In the process, what Serbia saw was a coalescence of voters who see the EU as vital to the country’s future around the coalition that most articulated that idea, For a European Serbia. The result was a sizeable shrinkage in the base of the outgoing prime minister, Vojislav Koštunica, a man who campaigned this time on an overtly anti-EU platform. The parties now gathered around the DS ran separately in January 2007, winning a total of 32.8% of the vote; they added roughly six points this time. By contrast, Koštunica saw his coalition’s vote fall from just under 17% to 11% in the space of 16 months. Meanwhile, the party that had previously been the country’s largest, the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS), won just over 29 percent, a result similar to its previous showings.

Why a nationalist government is improbable

But while the results of the 11 May vote have rightly been hailed as a triumph for Serbia’s pro-EU forces, the likely distribution of seats in parliament does not point to an obvious governing majority. In fact, if past and present political affinities were the guiding principle, an anti-European and strongly nationalist government would now be a done deal. What now distinguishes Koštunica, once seen as a moderate nationalist, from the Radicals is merely the willingness of Koštunica's party to resort to outright lies. The two – the Radicals and Koštunica’s party – would probably have 127 seats in the 250-strong parliament if they allied themselves with the coalition headed by the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), which was founded by the man who presided over Serbia’s descent into nationalism and isolation, Slobodan Milosevic.

Past affinities, though, are not a guide: Koštunica and the Radicals’ acting leader, Tomislav Nikolic, may have held what they billed as coalition talks only hours after the preliminary results were announced, but the two are unlikely to enter power together.

First of all, a government dominated by the Radicals would be out of sync with an electorate that now rightly feels it has defeated the Radicals at the ballot box. Second, a formal coalition with the far more numerous Radicals would be likely to further weaken Koštunica’s party. And, for the SPS, membership of a government dominated by the Radicals would be likely to halt the gradual recovery demonstrated by its relatively strong showing this time, 8%.

Why would Koštunica be weakened by linking up with the Radicals? The Radicals are no ordinary anti-European nationalist force: this is a party whose leader openly advocated ethnic cleansing and massacres and is now on trial in The Hague. Even though his stand-in, Nikolic, has made some attempts to polish the party’s rough image, there is no mistaking what the party stands for: when the polish wears thin, Nikolic is capable of saying – as he said in this campaign – that, unlike Milosevic, he would have “finished the job” in the 1990s. Getting into bed with such a party merely for a few ministerial portfolios would be a political suicide in a country where, according to independent pollsters, 67% of the population wishes to join the EU.

Furthermore, Serbia’s economy seems to be entirely geared towards the country’s presumed EU future. The Belgrade stock exchange indexes rose sharply last week, following Serbia’s signing of the SAA on 29 April; they jumped again on the morning following the election.

Milosevic’s increasingly wayward offspring

But while the overall after-taste in the country immediately after the vote is that the electorate overwhelmingly supported the pro-European parties, the actual electoral maths is somewhat less conclusive. Together with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), a DS splinter group, and the parties of ethnic minorities, the For a European Serbia coalition can probably count only on 123 votes. In other words, Tadic will need to look for support either from Koštunica’s or the SPS’s coalition.

Koštunica and his party, the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), cannot expect to play anything but a marginal role in a DS-led government. The degree of bad blood between the DSS and the DS, as well as Koštunica’s vanity, would probably make that impossible. At the same time, if Koštunica were to analyse his party’s situation cool-headedly or to listen to the probable advice of his aides, he would also reject the idea of governing with the Radicals. For the DSS, the rational move now is to opt for opposition benches or to offer Tadic support for a minority government.

As for Tadic, another government dependent on Koštunica’s whims is probably one of the least desirable options. Which is why Tadic is more likely to strike a deal with the SPS coalition.

But how on earth would that work? What would be in it for the SPS? And wouldn’t a reliance on the party founded by Milosevic demean such a government?

Improbable though it may seem, the outline of a DS-SPS deal has actually been in place for some time, though this is naturally not something either party has been keen to trumpet. The SPS is now only a shadow of its former mighty, criminal self. It largely gathers together people who were small fry under Milosevic, some of whom are now showing signs that they are determined to turn the party into a champion of social justice. And, in fact, the party and its coalition partners has enjoyed considerable success in speaking for less enlightened sections of Serbia’s elderly population as well as some local communities that feel disenfranchised and cut off from the country’s transitional mainstream.

While echoes of Milosevic-era sentiments can still easily be heard in their rhetoric, especially on the issue of Kosovo, the leaders of the SPS coalition do not behave like mindless nationalists who would feel at home in a cabinet with the Radicals. On the contrary, they very much look as if they would like to reform their party into a respectable mainstream force. In that regard, rejecting Nikolic and Koštunica and choosing instead the DS coalition, glowing as it now is with success and smelling of future promise, might prove a shrewd image-cleansing move for the SPS and for its coalition partners. Moreover, a minor role for the SPS in the government would probably be tolerated both by the EU and by pro-EU voters.

One possible scenario is for the SPS coalition, or some of its members, to support a DS-led minority government. Such an arrangement would, however, attract political sabotage and therefore be inherently unstable.

For Tadic, a minority government might at first look like a more elegant solution – but he may also want to consider a majority governing coalition, in which one or two portfolios, such as labour and regional development, would go to the SPS coalition. Bringing the SPS coalition into the cabinet would bind them closely to the government's reformist agenda and would also raise the price of any attempt at obstructionism, while leaving all major portfolios under the reformists’ control.

Tihomir Loza is a long-time commentator on Balkan affairs and currently deputy director of the news magazine Transitions Online.

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