How Serbia DID NOT choose EU path

This are some of todays world headlines:

Shock election win sets Serbia on path to EU, CNN.com

Tilt to West is seen in elections in Serbia, International Herald Tribune

Pro-West bloc claims Serbia win, Al Jazeera English

I wish all this was true. But it isn’t — it’s bullshit. Serbia didn’t choose European path. Serbia chose anti-european path.

Let us do the math:

Tadic’s Pro-EU coalition ZES: ~39 percent, 102 parliament seats,

Serbian Radical Party - SRS (so called “anti-EU & pro-Russia” party) : ~29 pecent, 77 parliament seats,

Kostunica’s DSS-NS coalition (which is —after Kosovo proclamation of independence was supported by majority of EU states and USA— also considered as anti-EU): ~12 percent, 30 parliament seats,

Socialist Party - SPS (former Milosevic’s party, also considered anti-EU): ~8 percent, 20 parliament seats,

Liberal Democratic Party - LDP (pro-EU): ~5 percent, 14 parliaments seats,

minority representatives: 7 parliament seats.

So, pro-EU parties will claim 116 seats (ZES: 102, LDP: 14) without minority parties (44% of popular vote) and 123 seats if they get all 7 minority representatives on their sides. This still leaves them 3 seats short to claim parliament majority (Serbian parliament counts 250 seats). Anti-EU parties on the other hand will have 127 seats (SRS: 77, DSS-NS: 30, SPS: 20) with 49% of popular vote.

So, which path did Serbia really choose?

Let’s not blind ourselves. Tadic will have BIG problems achieving parliament majority, as he will need to go in coalition with Kostunica & DSS-NS or former-Milosevic’s SPS. New coalition with Kostunica is very unlikely, but let us just not rule that possibility out yet. And on the other hand, SPS leader announced late yesterday that they will imidiately start talking with Kostunica’s DSS-NS to form a goverment together (with SRS). And even if Tadic somehow talks SPS into an coalition with his party, he will than have problems with LDP, because some of their members can’t even hear the words “Socialist Party”.

Radical Party leader yesterday already claimed that anti-EU option won. He admitted that as a party they were defeated by Tadic’s pro-EU coalition, but also added that pro-EU option all together didn’t achieve enough of popular vote to form a majority, not even with Liberal Democratic Party together. On the other hand, he already announced talks with DSS-NS and SPS to form a new majority coalition as soon as possible, in which case he expects that Boris Tadic will give him the mandate to form a new government.

It will be interesting to see, how this story will unfold in next days.

— Regards, Milan

About this entry

You’re currently reading “How Serbia DID NOT choose EU path”, an entry on m2-j.info