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| The emblem of Serbian Radical Party |
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Yesterday EU called off talks on preparations for membership with Serbia. In coming months Serbia may face the loss of Montenegro and Kosovo. How these events will affect the Serbian electorate is the big question. Especially Milosevic’s funeral showed how skilfully the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party could exploit some latent psychoses in Serbia. The party, which has one-third of the seats in parliament, is the major threat to the current minority government. Will history repeat itself? Is this again the “resistible rise of Arturo Ui”?
As the deadline for the capture of Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic expired on 30th April, the EU suspended aid and trade talks with Serbia yesterday. Serbian deputy prime minister in charge of negotiating possible EU membership Miroljub Labus resigned to protest his government's “recklessness” with the future of its people. Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) accused Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica of misleading her by insisting a month ago that Mladic's arrest was imminent. According to the EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, the EU talks with Serbia could restart “only if there is dramatic improvement in cooperation” with The Hague. Serbia was hoping to reach a new deal with the EU by July to take its first step on the road to eventual membership. Kostunica stated that he was disappointed wiht the EU’s decision, leaving his country in “very difficult circumstances”. No doubt, Serbia goes through one of the most difficult year of its history. On 21st May Montenegro will hold an independence referendum . And there is a great pressure upon Belgrade concerning Kosovo. Now that the EU closed its doors to Belgrade, there are fears of a nationalist backlash in Serbia. Is this the moment that Vojislav Seselj’s Serbian Radical Party (SRS) has ever waited for?
The (Ir)Resistible Rise of SRS
SRS, which obtained 28 percent of the votes in the early parliamentary elections on 28th December 2003, has 82 seats over 250 in parliament. The sight of the Radicals along with Milosevic’s Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) honouring the dead Serbian dictator with a minute of silence on 27th March was neither pleasing nor promising for new democratic Serbia. Especially when one thinks that in this way over one-third of the Serbian parliament stood for this questionable tribute.
The Radicals exploited Milosevic’s funeral skilfully. They emphasised again and again that the ICTY
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SRS attending Milosevic's funeral |
lost its credibility and that is why Serbia should not extradite Karadzic and Mladic to The Hague. The death of Milosevic gave the Radicals the opportunity of strengthening the belief of many Serbian that the ICTY is a biased instrument, which has no purpose but to punish the Serbs, and creating an atmosphere of “you can kill our leader, but not Serbia”. Now that the government was somewhat abandoned by the EU, SRS’ arguments seem more convincing than ever. And the fact that they are the major opposition party in parliament makes the situation more serious.
It makes the situation more serious because this year will probably witness the loss of two lands where the “Serbdom” had been born: Montenegro and Kosovo. Especially the loss of Kosovo may cause serious turbulences. Although the current government is against the independence of the southern province, according to diplomatic sources many Serbian officials secretly admit the fact that Kosovo is now a lost cause. If this happens, none of the coalition partners would want to be the Brankovic of the story. According to the national myth of treachery, if the powerful local lord of Kosovo Vuk Brankovic had not betrayed Knez Lazar, Serbia would not have been defeated by the Ottomans in 1389. Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and his minority government know that the moment that they cede Kosovo the Radicals will label them as new Brankovics of Serbia.
What makes SRS popular? How come they keep some credibility amongst 28 percent of the people after all that happened in ex-Yugoslavia? Did a part of the Serbs not take any lesson from the war? Or is there another and deeper reason for this support?
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| Vojislav Seselj |
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SRS was founded in 1991by Vojislav Seselj, who is currently in The Hague waiting for his trial for over three years now. Seselj, whose most memorable quote is “I hate the Croats so much that I would have liked to gouge their eyes out with a rusty spoon”, was not an upright ultra-nationalist. A Bosnian Serb and the youngest Ph.D. of legal science in Tito's Yugoslavia, Seselj had been respectively communist, monarchist, republican and ultra-nationalist. It is remarkable how swiftly he could change his loyalties from one to another.
In 1990, Seselj founded the Serbian Chetnik Movement. The party was refused official registration because of his name, “arousing religious and national hatred”. In communist Yugoslavia, members of the royalist Chetnik resistance to the Nazis were seen as “traitors”. In 1991, Milosevic noticed Seselj, and decided to use his clique in order to attract the hard-line nationalist vote. The Chetnik Movement was re-baptised as Serbian Radical Party - a so-called opposition party. With the birth of a more radical party, voters of SPS could believe that they were still voting a left wing party. Another purpose of Milosevic, who saved Seselj from the fringes of politics, was to create a “scapegoat” and a “bogeyman” in time of need. The international community should see that the "opposition" was worse than Milosevic. SRS was the “bogeyman”. When in 1993 Seselj thought of himself so powerful even to defy his master, Milosevic’s wife wrote about him as a "primitive chauvinist Serbia should be ashamed of”. SRS was the “scapegoat”. From 1993 until the fall of Milosevic -except the prelude of Kosovo war when Seselj was vice-president of Serbian government-, SRS was cast to oblivion in the political arena.
When Milosevic was ousted in October 2000, Seselj turned against him and supported the change. However SRS did not get much success in the elections of 2000. Rather unexpectedly, though, the Milosevics supported Seselj as candidate for the presidential elections in 2002 in Serbia. He came third.
In late February 2003, Seselj surrendered to the ICTY on the indictment of “eight counts of crimes against humanity and six counts of violations of the laws or customs of war for his alleged participation in a joint criminal enterprise”. The reason why he turned himself in by his own free will is rather interesting: “I've been given a lifetime opportunity to become famous worldwide, and I won't run away from that”.
Between December 2000 and 2003, Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), which was an alliance of Serbian political parties, ruled Serbia. The DOS coalition promised the people jobs, higher standard of living, security, EU membership, political stability and respectability. Yet one cannot say that the DOS coalition could remedy a lot to the post-war economic depression of the country. The democratic and pro-European parties failed to fight against corruption and to carry out economic reforms. Indeed Serbia has been going through a painful transition period after the war and no one could ever expect sudden miracles. Yet the gloomy situation played into the hands of the Radicals, who in the meantime changed their image.
SRS, which began to present itself as a neo-conservative party, stopped verbal attacks on national minorities and sought their support instead. The Radicals fiercely criticised the economic policy of the government, which favoured import over export. Exploiting the name of Nikola Pasic, they reminded the people of the once prosperous Serbia between 1903 and 1914 and of the glorious Pig War years (1906-1911) when Serbia won a trade war against Austria-Hungary. SRS deputy chairman Tomislav Nikolic, leading the party while Seselj is in The Hague, proposed to reorient the economy to Russia, China and India. Why not to start a new Pig War and defeat the EU? Those, who were disappointed with government’s broken promises, began to consider the Radicals as the dim light at the end of the tunnel. SRS was still raving about “Greater Serbia”. Just before his surrender to The Hague, Seselj stated: “They say Milosevic wanted Greater Serbia. I am the original ideologue of Greater Serbia and I will not let anyone take that away from me”. Probably those, who voted SRS preferred to see this as an “unpleasant yet negligible obsession” of their part.
Moreover as SPS’ junior partners (1998-2000), the Radicals were never held responsible for the catastrophe in which Serbia found itself in Kosovo. Many consider the SRS of Milosevic era as a real opposition party.
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| Poster from Nikolic's June 2004 presidential campaign - the slogan reads Realistic |
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These were the reasons of their success in early parliamentary elections and presidential elections in June 2004 (Nikolic came second with 46 percent of the votes). And these are still the reasons of their constant rise in Serbia.
Waiting for Nemesis
To conclude that the rise of SRS meant that the Serbian mentality did not change at all would be too fast and too simple. Amongst those who voted for SRS, there were of course some incurable supporters of the party. However the rest was those, who wanted to warn the democratic government. In this regard, the rise of the Radicals is “resistible”.
The failure in fight against corruption and in economic reforms apart, democratic parties were fighting each other, instead of creating a common platform for political and economical reforms. Traditional feuding between Vojislav Kostunica’s centre-right Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) and Boris Tadic’s social democratic Democratic Party (DS) has been bedevilling the Serbian politics for years. It is not that SRS is wining, but the government is failing.
This kind of “warnings” coming from the electorate is not new. For example, the current Turkish government, which claims to be “moderate Muslim”, was elected in 2002 by those, otherwise perfectly democratic voters, who were desperate with previous unsuccessful governments.
Kostunica’s government has time until the 2007 elections. Serbian government should convince the electorate that the political radicalisation of Serbia could only hasten the secession of Kosovo and the alienation of Serbia from Europe. However the main key of success is, without any doubt, the fight against the high rate of unemployment, since it is known that the vast majority of voters are guided by economic reasons.
As to the EU, it should have helped more to Serbia’s democratic parties. The European Commission's decision to call off talks would be counter-productive at any time. Pro-European and democratic government promised to reach a new deal with the EU by July to take its first step on the road to eventual membership. Now that the EU calls off talks with Serbia, many Serb will see this as another broken promise of their government. An adviser to former Yugoslav President Kostunica, Predrag Simic once stated: “Most Serbs believe the EU membership is too far away to be a practical political goal”. Yesterday those, who think in that way, probably felt themselves justified in their belief. If, in addition, on 21st May Montenegro secedes (an “invented nation” according to Seselj) and Kosovo becomes independent by the end of this year, which party or parties will be the nemesis of SRS-hubris then?
The international community should be more self-critical. After all, it is hard to explain how Radovan Karadzic could elude NATO forces in UN-controlled Bosnia-Herzegovina for years. This sudden pressure for the extradition may be related to the Kosovo status negotiations. Mladic was accused of war crimes as early as 1995. However, only recently Belgrade was given a deadline to capture him. Is this a simple coincidence? Or does the international community want to force Serbia into a corner in order to obtain at least one concession (namely Kosovo) in the end?
If this is the case, this would do more harm than good. The somewhat “moralising” attitude of the EU may be perceived by the Serbs as a humiliation and cause unpredictable reactions. Serbia needs time to invent its own democracy, which suits the country best. Any premature push or any act, which could be perceived as an “unjust punishment”, would push more voters to alienate from European perspective. And Europe cannot afford to lose Serbia - once again.
Related items:
Euro-Atlantic Axis in the Balkans: Macedonia-Kosovo-Albania (02.05.06)
Albania: A Mere Supporter of Kosovo Team in the Grandstand (29.04.06)
Southern Serbia, or the Albanian "Motive-Hunting" (24.04.06)
Montenegro’s Independence Depends on European Mathematics (19.04.06)
Serbian Democrats Need the Patience of a Saint (17.03.06)
Kosovo: A New State or a New Bone of Contention in the Balkans? (26.11.05)
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