Belgrade - A party once led by strongman Slobodan Milosevic
began coalition talks Wednesday with Serbia's caretaker prime
minister after emerging as possible kingmaker in weekend elections.
As the swing party in the new parliament, the ex-communist
Socialists can determine Serbia's course by supporting either hard-
line nationalists or President Boris Tadic's pro-Europe bloc.
Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, who has leaned increasingly
nationalist since Serbia lost Kosovo, met Socialist leader Ivica
Dacic for talks on a new government, but reached no immediate deal.
Dacic, 42, a former top aide to the late Milosevic who has tried
to modernize the party, said talks were 'constructive' and would
continue Thursday. He declined to comment on the possibility of
allying with Tadic's Democratic Party, which won the most votes on
Sunday's elections.
Tadic is counting on the support of the small, pro-Western Liberal
Democrats, but he needs a second ally to build a governing majority
in the 250-seat parliament.
Tadic wants to keep Serbia on course to European Union membership,
which has been challenged by the ultra-nationalists camp led by
Kostunica and the Radical Party. They want to steer the country away
from the West in protest at its support of Kosovo's independence.
Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia and the ultra-nationalist
Serbian Radical Party, the number-two force in parliament, have
announced a tentative coalition deal, but they also need a partner
for a majority.
That leaves Socialists with their 20 seats in the key role.
Tadic said the Socialists are a 'totally acceptable' coalition
partner because both parties wanted social reforms, justice and equal
opportunities for Serbs.
Bringing the Socialists into a pro-European government would give
unexpected legitimacy to the force seen as most responsible for the
devastation across former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.
It barely survived Milosevic's fall in 2000 and is now seeking to
show a modernized, tolerant face, two years after his death while on
trial for war crimes - although it never renounced him.
But the Socialists also hold grudges against Tadic's party and the
Liberal Democrats over Milosevic's arrest and handover to the war
crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Kostunica and the Radicals seem the more likely partners for the
Socialists, who sang Russian songs during election night and whose
leader Dacic spoke in Russian at the congress of Vladimir Putin's
Unity Party of Russia.
Under Serbian law, the new parliament must convene within a month
after the elections and the new government within three months after
the constitution of the parliament.
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