Tadić won — just

Boris Tadić has won the Serbian presidential election with some 50.57% of the vote and a high voter turnout. Cue a collective outlet of breath. Less reassuringly, that of course means Radical candidate Nikolić got the other half of the people’s vote.

The speculations I cited a few days ago got this much right: Tadić did scrape by, just barely, in a very tight race. The rest they got wrong. Koštunica and other political leaders failed to throw their support behind Tadić, despite knowing the alternative.

From what I’ve read so far, even the Bosniak (Muslim) minority this time was not undivided in support of Tadić, as they were in 2004. With Serbian nationalist Koštunica and one-time Sandžak separatist Sulejman Ugljanin as political allies, though, one does get inured to surprises.

Questions are being raised in Belgrade how the Koštunica government, which includes Tadić’s Democratic Party, can continue to function after this. Some call for Koštunica’s resignation, others expect the government to stay but initiative to pass to the Democrats. Kosovo’s independence is looming, though Tadić’s victory may have helped delay it a few weeks; if Koštunica does not want Serbia to lose Kosovo on his watch as PM, resigning is one option. Meanwhile, the first test of the new political reality is how the government will handle the political agreement offered by the EU, due to be signed this week.