Europe, Headlines

SERBIA: Pro-Europeans Win, Short of Majority

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, May 12 2008 (IPS) - The pro-European bloc of parties claimed victory in the crucial Sunday parliamentary elections in Serbia. They now promise a brighter future for the nation of 7.5 million traumatised by the isolation, the poverty and the NATO bombing through the 1990s, followed by a slow and painful economic recovery, and recently the loss of the southern province Kosovo.

According to the election monitoring agency Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID), the pro-European bloc led by the Democratic Party (DS) of President Boris Tadic won 39 percent of the vote, which translates into 103 seats in the 250-member parliament. The ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS), tipped by most surveys to win the elections, was well behind with 29 percent, or 76 seats.

The conservative Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) of outgoing prime minister Vojislav Kostunica got 11 percent, or 30 seats. The biggest comeback was for the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) of late leader Slobodan Milosevic, that took eight percent of the vote, getting 20 seats.

The small pro-Western Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) got 5.2 percent, or 13 seats. Parties of Hungarian, ethnic Albanian and Bosniak minorities will be allocated eight seats through a policy of positive discrimination. The turnout in the elections was 61 percent of the 4.7 million electorate.

The results surprised most analysts. All the opinion surveys prior to the elections showed a strong lead for anti-European parties, with the SRS being pinpointed as a winner followed by DSS.

The accent of their campaign was that the European Union (EU) and the U.S. had illegally allowed secession of the ethnic Albanian populated province Kosovo, run by the United Nations since the 1999 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) bombing of Serbia.

The Kostunica-led government, in a loose coalition with Tadic’s Democrats, collapsed weeks after Kosovo’s declaration of independence in February. The two partners fell apart due to differences over the EU. Kostunica wanted all ties with the EU and the West cut, and for Serbia to turn to Russia. Tadic’s Democrats were against this. After the fall of government, Kostunica turned to the pro-Russian Radicals as allies.

In the campaign of the SRS and the DSS, the signing of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the European Union (EU) a week ago by Tadic amounted to “high treason” because most EU countries had recognised Kosovo. The SAA agreement is a step towards EU membership, a proclaimed political goal of Serbia since the ousting of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.

The SRS and DSS told voters that a pro-European choice would mean a “trade-off of valuable history and national dignity for a handful of euros.”

“This proved to be a completely false and induced dilemma, clearly recognised by voters,” analyst Zoran Stojiljkovic told IPS. “What most people here are centred on now are their living standards and hopes for a better future. Voters were smart to assess what can be really done about Kosovo despite nationalists’ promises to ‘bring back Kosovo into Serbia’.”

“What we saw was a kind of follow-up voting,” analyst Vladimir Goati said at a press conference of CeSID. “Tadic won presidential elections in Feb. 3, Tomislav Nikolic (SRS leader) lost. Voters of SRS are becoming tired of their candidates or party being close to victory so frequently and never winning. No promises are delivered. And people want jobs, a good life and proper living standards. Radicals never explained how they would bring this, and many of their voters shifted to Socialists, who promised social justice.”

Goati, like other analysts, believes that the signing of the SAA and the contract signed between the Zastava car factory in the central Serbian town Kragujevac and Italian Fiat last week “gave a significant boost to pro-European voters.” Fiat is to invest a billion dollars in the Serbian car factory.

Zastava had a cooperation agreement with Fiat since the mid-1950s, but this has been frozen since 1992 when strict international sanctions were introduced against Serbia over its role in wars in former Yugoslavia. The factory used to employ more than 35,000 people in the town of 200,000. Many of these people have been jobless since, others have turned to farming or small trade for survival.

“The results of the elections are a clear signal to foreign investors,” analyst Misa Brkic told IPS. “Serbia was losing billions of dollars of badly needed investments due to the unstable and rocky political situation in the past year and particularly the last months. We need at least 5 billion dollars a year to continue steady development; the doors are open now.”

The Serbian economy has been growing by a steady 6 percent since 2000, with average salaries rising tenfold since Milosevic fell from power. However, the transition to a market economy has led to 27 percent unemployment, corruption, and only a very slow re-emergence of a middle class that disappeared under Milosevic in the 1990s.

The next task for President Tadic and his pro-European bloc is to form a new coalition government. There remains a theoretical yet slim chance for Kostunica, the Radicals and Socialists to try to make a government.

“Socialists without Milosevic are the best girl to marry now in order to have a stable government,” Stojiljkovic says. “They will be the decisive factor in the creation of a new government – with either pro-European or the nationalist bloc. They have a significant chance to cut their ties with Milosevic’s legacy and re-dress into a modern party of the left, which is badly needed in Serbia.”

Socialists leader Ivica Dacic has not elaborated on coalitions so far, but said that the party would join “those who stand for social justice.” The EU welcomed the success of pro-European forces and said it would take Serbia faster towards EU membership.

“The pro-European side in Serbia won, which was what we were aiming for in the EU,” Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel said. Slovenia holds the rotating presidency of the EU.