Serbia’s cliffhanger election

This week’s worry? In the first round of presidential elections in Serbia last weekend, Radical Party candidate Tomislav Nikolić took nearly 40% of the vote against some 35.4% for the incumbent, Democratic Party candidate Boris Tadić.

This large a vote for the nasty national chauvinist party of indicted war criminal Vojislav Šešelj is not surprising, with emotions running high over Kosovo’s imminent unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia. It is still frightening.

If voters think the election for the mainly ceremonial post of president is a good occasion for a protest vote, they cannot have thought really hard about the idea of a Radical as commander in chief of the country’s armed forces.

Presumably, Tadić will just barely scrape by in the second round on 3 February, as he did in 2004, when he also came second to Nikolić in the first round (27.4%–30.6%). But it is far from a given.br

Meanwhile, Serb analysts have been saying PM Koštunica could well decide the election. He will finally have to show his colours and throw his support behind one of the candidates — presumably Tadić — after years of muted threats that he might throw in his lot with the Radicals.

In the latest Vreme, Dragoljub Žarković argues that Koštunica’s kingmaker potential is exaggerated: Koštunica’s first-round support did not help candidate Velimir Iljić much, and a number of other political leaders can also shift some voters that may decide a close race. In the end they will not risk putting Radicals in power, but in the meantime, they will be negotiating the price of their support.

Koštunica’s price, apparently, is that he wants Serbia to turn down an important Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU if a European mission goes to Kosovo without Security Council clearance. In other words, Serbia should threaten to hold its breath until it passes out.

It is not much of a strategy and Tadić knows it, but in mid-week after the first round, there were speculations in Belgrade that Tadić and Koštunica had nonetheless struck a deal. We shall see.

Kosovo Albanians, who as usual boycotted Serbian elections, have feigned indifference and said what goes on in “another country” would not affect their independence. But never averse to a crisis that might help their cause, some must be hoping for a Nikolić win to convince Europe that Kosovo can have no future within Serbia.