Europe News
Serbian nationalists move closer to power (2nd Roundup)
By DPA
May 15, 2008, 21:09 GMT

Belgrade - Parties opposing close Serbian ties with the West announced a preliminary deal Thursday that could lead to a ruling coalition in all levels of government.

The ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS), outgoing Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) and Slobodan Milosevic's Socialist Party (SPS) said they had agreed on basic principles, laying the foundation for a future coalition.

The deal was not finalized, and talks were set to continue Friday, leaders said. Earlier Thursday, the three parties announced a similar agreement in principle, which may lead to a ruling majority in the Belgrade City Hall.

Among the five broad, general principles the three sides agreed on was a statement stressing that Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in February, must remain a part of Serbia.

Serbia's European integration - which Kostunica halted in the wake of Kosovo's secession and Western support of it, toppling his own government in the process - was also highlighted as a priority.

Western integration, however, appears unlikely if SRS leader Tomislav Nikolic and Kostunica - both of whom vowed to scrap Serbia's pre-membership agreement with the European Union in protest of Western support of Kosovo's secession - take hold of power.

Serbs voted Sunday in snap parliamentary and municipal elections. The Radicals and Kostunica's DSS won 78 and 30 seats, respectively.

The Socialists emerged from the election with 20 seats in Parliament and, as the only party apparently capable of swinging between two major camps, the potential kingmaker.

A coalition of the nationalists and Socialists would have a slim majority with 128 votes in the 250-seat Parliament - though it could be joined by two Muslim minority representatives.

The coalition behind pro-European President Boris Tadic won 102 seats but may remain out of the government if SRS, DSS and SPS forge a coalition despite a loud celebration of victory Sunday night.

The distribution of votes was similar in most big cities, with Belgrade, the hub of virtually all aspects of life in Serbia, by far the most important.

The SPS was widely regarded as most responsible for the bloody disintegration of former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. It has never renounced the now dead Milosevic, though its leaders, now eight years in opposition, are showing a more tolerant, modern face.

Tadic, who appeared caught off guard by the speed with which the nationalists moved to woo the SPS, earlier said that his party shares the ideology of welfare for citizens with the Socialists and stressed that that he would have no problem working with them.

By Thursday night, Tadic's camp had not publicly contacted the SPS. It was still unclear whether SPS leader Ivica Dacic, a spokesman for Milosevic in the 1990s, had any intention of discussing a coalition with Tadic.

Dacic was due Friday in Moscow for talks with officials, while SRS was sending a delegation to the UN War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague for consultations with its indicted and detained party president, Vojislav Seselj.