Cans of Worms

22 January 2007



Radical Party “Wins” Serb Election, May Not Govern

Serbia has created an interesting and worrisome political situation for itself and its neighbors with yesterday’s elections. It appears that the nationalist Serbian Radical Party (party of late war-criminal Slobodon Milosevic) garnered the most votes, tallying around 28.3%. However, the Democratic Party of President Boris Tadic received 22.6%, and the center-right Popular Coalition of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica got 16.3%. With some support from other pro-European parties, the latter two should be able to keep the Radicals from power. However, it is troubling that three out of 10 Serbs back such a party at all.

The trouble here is the province of Kosovo, which wants independence and which has a majority population of ethnic Albanians, not Serbs. To say that there are hard feelings on both sides is an understatement. Reuters wrote, “Kosovo was taken out of Serbia’s hands when NATO bombed for 11 weeks [in 1999] to force Milosevic to pull out his troops and end a counter-insurgency war that killed 10,000 Albanians.” The Radicals believe that the Serbs’ ethnic identity is so closely tied to Kosovo that they must rule it. The Radicals also want to extend their rule to places where ethnic Serbs live in Bosnia and Croatia -- Serbia Irredenta as it were.

The UN is now toying with the idea of letting Kosovo have its freedom. This should almost certainly result in violence, but denying the ethnic Albanians their right to self-determination might result in the same thing. The fact that almost a third of Serbs voted for a party that wants to take Kosovo back from the UN is a danger to the peace of the Balkans. And indeed, there is a sense in which letting Radicals govern might keep things more peaceful.

As everyone in elective politics knows, power is the objective, but opposition is where all the fun is. One has a mandate to represent policies that will never have to be implemented. Stirring up trouble on the ground merely creates difficulties for the other side, and making promises costs nothing, so they tend to be outlandish. Regrettably, the positions taken irresponsibly in opposition become government policy if one ever gets back in. As President Lyndon Johnson was wont to say, “I’d rather have him in the tent pissing out than outside pissing in.”

Serbia’s application to join the EU is on hold and a responsible government’s first objective is to get that back on track. Messrs. Tadic and Kostunica know that, and they appear willing to put aside some differences over Kosovo to do that. However, coalition negotiations will go on for days, and maybe even weeks. In that time, the danger of violence will not fade. The Balkans never seem to change.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.


Home

Google
WWW Kensington Review







Amazon Honor System Click Here to Pay Learn More