allesennogwat
05-08-2007, 01:16 PM
AFP-Tuesday May 8
Serbia elected an extreme nationalist to one of the most powerful positions in the country on Tuesday, prompting fears of a return to the isolation of the Slobodan Milosevic era.
Leader of the Serbian Radical Party, Tomislav Nikolic, was voted in as parliamentary speaker with backing from caretaker Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica after a marathon 15-hour debate in parliament.
The move deepens the political paralysis in Serbia where Nikolic's Radicals emerged as the biggest party in January's legislative elections and squabbling moderate parties have failed to form a coalition after weeks of wrangling.
"This is the beginning of a new radicalisation of Serbia," warned Dragan Sutanovac, a member of President Boris Tadic's pro-european Democratic party, during the parliamentary debate.
Tadic said Nikolic's election was "extremely harmful to the interests of the state" and appealed to Serbia's "progressive forces" to "show responsibility and to make an effort in order to ensure ... the European future of Serbia."
The European Union froze rapprochement talks with Belgrade a year ago chiefly over Belgrade's failure to hand former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Mladic, wanted over the Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim males at the end of Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, is widely believed to be hiding in Serbia.
In Brussels, EU enlargement chief Olli Rehn warned: "Serbia stands today at a crossroads; choose between the return to a nationalist past or an approach toward a European future."
Speaking after the vote Nikolic said: "I am not a danger for Serbia" and stressed that his party had not made any deals with Kostunica, a moderate nationalist who shunned the violence of the Milosevic era but shared many of its objectives.
Nikolic's Radical party was an on-off ally of Milosevic's Socialist party of Serbia throughout the Balkan wars up until his arrest in 2001 and removal to the UN international warcrimes tribunal in the Hague where he died just over a year ago.
The previous leader of the party, Vojislav Seselj, who was in the vanguard of Serbia's bloody role in the break-up of the former Yugoslavia is currently awaiting trial at The Hague on war crime charges.
Under Serbia's constitution, parties have until May 14 to form a new government or else new elections must be called opening the way for the Radical party to increase its share of the vote.
Nikolic's election comes at a time when Serbia is battling the prospect of its southern province of Kosovo being awarded independence by the UN Security Council, an issue the Radicals have campaigned hard against.
It was an argument over how key security posts that handle the Kosovo issue and relations with the UN tribunal that led to the break up of coalition talks between the parties of Tadic, Kostunica and the reformist G17 Plus.
In the January 21 polls, the Radicals won the most votes but fell short of an outright majority with 81 places in the 250-seat assembly.
Tadic's DS won 64 seats, Kostunica's DSS 47 and G17 Plus, 19 seats.
Serbia elected an extreme nationalist to one of the most powerful positions in the country on Tuesday, prompting fears of a return to the isolation of the Slobodan Milosevic era.
Leader of the Serbian Radical Party, Tomislav Nikolic, was voted in as parliamentary speaker with backing from caretaker Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica after a marathon 15-hour debate in parliament.
The move deepens the political paralysis in Serbia where Nikolic's Radicals emerged as the biggest party in January's legislative elections and squabbling moderate parties have failed to form a coalition after weeks of wrangling.
"This is the beginning of a new radicalisation of Serbia," warned Dragan Sutanovac, a member of President Boris Tadic's pro-european Democratic party, during the parliamentary debate.
Tadic said Nikolic's election was "extremely harmful to the interests of the state" and appealed to Serbia's "progressive forces" to "show responsibility and to make an effort in order to ensure ... the European future of Serbia."
The European Union froze rapprochement talks with Belgrade a year ago chiefly over Belgrade's failure to hand former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Mladic, wanted over the Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim males at the end of Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, is widely believed to be hiding in Serbia.
In Brussels, EU enlargement chief Olli Rehn warned: "Serbia stands today at a crossroads; choose between the return to a nationalist past or an approach toward a European future."
Speaking after the vote Nikolic said: "I am not a danger for Serbia" and stressed that his party had not made any deals with Kostunica, a moderate nationalist who shunned the violence of the Milosevic era but shared many of its objectives.
Nikolic's Radical party was an on-off ally of Milosevic's Socialist party of Serbia throughout the Balkan wars up until his arrest in 2001 and removal to the UN international warcrimes tribunal in the Hague where he died just over a year ago.
The previous leader of the party, Vojislav Seselj, who was in the vanguard of Serbia's bloody role in the break-up of the former Yugoslavia is currently awaiting trial at The Hague on war crime charges.
Under Serbia's constitution, parties have until May 14 to form a new government or else new elections must be called opening the way for the Radical party to increase its share of the vote.
Nikolic's election comes at a time when Serbia is battling the prospect of its southern province of Kosovo being awarded independence by the UN Security Council, an issue the Radicals have campaigned hard against.
It was an argument over how key security posts that handle the Kosovo issue and relations with the UN tribunal that led to the break up of coalition talks between the parties of Tadic, Kostunica and the reformist G17 Plus.
In the January 21 polls, the Radicals won the most votes but fell short of an outright majority with 81 places in the 250-seat assembly.
Tadic's DS won 64 seats, Kostunica's DSS 47 and G17 Plus, 19 seats.