SERBIA: Another Critical Election Looms

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Jan 17 2008 (IPS) - Serbia faces presidential elections Sunday, once again considered crucial for the country.

The election comes at a time when the country is most likely to lose the southern Kosovo province, populated by ethnic Albanians and run by the United Nations (UN) since 1999.

Serbia strongly opposes the imminent independence of Kosovo, due to be proclaimed in coming months after failed internationally sponsored negotiations. The conservative coalition government, backed by the nationalist opposition, has vowed “never to allow it”.

In anticipation of EU support for Kosovo, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica is threatening to refuse to sign the Stabilisation and Association agreement (SAA) with the European Union (EU) later this month. The SAA is a step towards EU membership.

The reform-oriented Democratic Party (DS), part of the coalition government headed by Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has made President Boris Tadic (50) its candidate. But Kostunica has asked his supporters to vote for nationalist Velja Ilic (58) from the small Nova Srbija (New Serbia) party, who has taken a strong stand against independence for Kosovo.

Ilic has stressed in his campaign that “giving away Kosovo” is not a price Serbia is willing to pay for joining the EU.

Apart from Tadic and Ilic, there are another seven candidates, including Tomislav Nikolic (57), head of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS).

The SRS leader Vojislav Seselj is being tried for war crimes before the UN-founded tribunal in The Hague. This party joined the ruling forces in Serbia through the wars of the 1990s, and was accused of spreading hatred against non-Serbs in the region.

Nikolic is strongly in favour of “Serbia keeping Kosovo” – without specifying how. He has held out the possibility that Serbia becomes “Russia’s governorate”. Russia backs Serbia in its refusal for independence for Kosovo.

The only presidential candidate to clearly say that Kosovo is lost to Serbia and that Serbia needs a faster track to the EU is Cedomir Jovanovic (37) leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP).

“It is Milosevic who lost Kosovo to Serbia in 1999, and this government is trying to ruin the future of Serbia further with its insistence on defiance (in regard to Kosovo independence),” Jovanovic said at one of his rallies.

Present surveys indicate that no one will be elected Jan. 20. The election monitoring and research organisation CeSID predicts that Nikolic and Tadic could face each other in the Feb. 3 re-run.

The CeSID sample of 1,200 shows that Nikolic will win 21 percent in the first round, Tadic 19 percent, and the rest a small percentage. It suggests that 33 percent will not vote, and 16 percent are still undecided.

“The turnout in the presidential elections is always smaller than in the parliamentary elections,” CeSID manager Marko Blagojevic told IPS. “People are more interested in electing MPs, as they make direct decisions that influence our everyday lives.”

But analyst Zoran Stojiljkovic told IPS that this time it could be different. “By choosing a president Serbs will choose the road they want to pursue in the immediate future. Such an important decision will bring more people to the second, decisive round on Feb. 3.”

Experts from CeSID and Strategic Marketing say the race in the re-run could be the tightest ever.

Analysts agree that Serbs are tired of frequent elections and “decisive calls”, as Stojiljkovic puts it. Only 10 percent of young people vote, while a large number of women, who make 51 percent of the electorate, also stay away.

Some non-governmental organisations are now trying to persuade more people to vote. “Our aim is to show that of all kinds are very important for one’s future,” head of the prominent Civil Initiatives Miljenko Dereta told journalists in Belgrade. “One’s activity in the elections can help change things, and that is what we insist upon. One cannot expect ‘others’ to bring changes, or, even worse, allow ‘others’ vote out the option one is not sympathetic with.”