Belgrade - Pro-European Serbian President Boris Tadic's
Democratic Party (DS) and the Serbian Socialist party (SPS) (of the
late former president Slobodan Milosevic), formally reconciled on
Saturday, four months after agreeing to build a coalition government.
The DS and SPS jointly declared Serbian membership of the European
Union as their goal, while - in a reference to the declaration of the
former-Serbian province of Kosovo in February - pledging to preserve
'the full integrity of Serbia.'
'This is a solemn act shaping the values of ... our political
intent for the future. With this we wish to pave the way to others
... political reconciliation may lead to national reconciliation,'
Tadic said after the signing ceremony.
In his words, the DS-SPS declaration was 'devoted to the past and
the future, because the conflicts of the past threatened to tear the
country apart.'
SPS leader, Serbian deputy premier and Interior Minister Ivica
Dacic said 'we're on a common job, we shouldn't look to the past
only, but learn from it so Serbia may have a better future.'
The Democrats and Socialists agreed in June, six weeks
after May 11 elections, to forge a government coalition with the
reformist G17 Plus party, and steer Serbia towards the EU.
The poll was forced when the previous cabinet fell in the wake of
Kosovo's declaration of secession on February 17.
The deal to form a coalition government averts the prospect of an
ultra-nationalist government which may have turned Serbia away from
the West over its support of Kosovo's independence.
The formal reconciliation of DS and SPS was delayed as, some media
reported, coalition partners haggled over lucrative and influential
executive posts in state-run enterprises.
The coalition, which will have a volatile, thin majority in
parliament, faces a tough job of restarting the stalled privatization
and other reforms, while under pressure of rising inflation and
social discontent, now peaking after eight years of slow
transition.
DS and SPS leaders saw the need for a formal reconciliation to put
behind the political war between the two sides which has dragged on
democracy was introduced to Serbia in 1990.
Milosevic and the SPS led Serbia with an iron hand through several
conflicts and into economic disaster in the 1990s. A year after
Milosevic fell in 2000, the DS leader and prime minister Zoran
Djindjic extradited him to The Hague.
Djindjic himself was assassinated in 2003 by rogue policemen who
had been in Milosevic's service.
Dacic, himself a top SPS official in Milosevic's time, never
denounced the late strongman, though in his reign corruption exploded
in Serbia and organized crime virtually overpowered state
institutions.
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