By AFP
Belgrade : Serbian President Boris Tadic dissolved parliament Thursday and called early elections for May 11, after the ruling coalition collapsed in a rift over ties with the EU and Kosovo’s independence. “The elections are a democratic way for citizens to say how Serbia should develop in years to come,” Tadic said in a statement.
The parliament’s dismissal was requested by nationalist Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica’s government, which said it was unable to overcome wrangling over Serbia’s integration in the European Union and Kosovo independence.
Kostunica announced Saturday that his Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) had failed to solve the dispute with its pro-European coalition partners from Tadic’s Democratic Party (DS).
The government’s collapse came less than a month after ethnic Albanian majority Kosovo unilaterally proclaimed independence from Serbia, which considers the territory its historic heartland. Angered by most EU countries’ decision to recognise Kosovo’s independence, Kostunica, backed by the opposition ultra-nationalist Radical Party (SRS), vowed to stop Serbia’s EU integration unless the bloc acknowledged Kosovo as a part of Serbia.
“It is extremely important that citizens decide and choose a government responsible to the nation that will have the strength to fight for preserving Kosovo,” Kostunica said in a statement on Thursday. A new government should “negotiate with the EU on the entry of the entire country into Europe” with Kosovo as a part of it, Kostunica said.
Tadic and his party, which also opposes the independence move, argue Serbia has no alternative but to try to join the EU as soon as possible, regardless of the Kosovo dispute.
In a statement dissolving parliament, Tadic said elections were “a new chance for us to strengthen … our economic perspective through a process of European integration, to confirm our democratic capacity and to change things for the better”.
The May polls will be seen as a referendum on Serbia’s EU accession, as was the presidential election of early February when Tadic narrowly defeated the Radicals leader Tomislav Nikolic.
Analysts expect voters to be split between the pro-European forces including the DS and liberal G17-plus party, and nationalists including the Radicals and Socialists of late president Slobodan Milosevic.
The polls will be held less than 18 months after the last legislative elections in the troubled Balkan country. In January 2006, the Radicals came out on top but fell short of an outright majority. Kostunica’s DSS, which hardened its stance on EU integration in the months leading up to Kosovo’s independence, has already said it would not exclude forming a government in coalition with the Radicals.
“We have to respect the will of the people, and if the people choose the Radicals, then they are in the game,” Velimir Ilic, a close ally of Kostunica, told the daily Vecernje Novosti on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Kostunica’s party was suspended from an EU centre-right bloc due to its stance on Kosovo’s independence declaration, French Euro MP Alain Lamassoure said, after the group met ahead of a European summit in Brussels.
“The European People’s Party (EPP) has taken the decision to suspend Mr Kostunica’s party to give him a warning and so that he can try to take more European positions,” he said. According to the latest opinion polls, Tadic’s Democrats and the Radicals are neck-and-neck and will win the most votes, but none will gain enough to form a government without a smaller party.
Serbia has initialled a Stabilisation and Association Agreement, a first step towards full EU membership. However, the agreement has yet to be signed pending Belgrade’s full cooperation with The Hague-based UN war crimes court, namely in arresting and delivering remaining war crime suspects.