By Boris Babic Jan 22, 2007, 0:35 GMT
Belgrade - The hardline nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS) again won the most seats in Serbia's parliamentary election Sunday but without enough to form a government - yet the opposing democratic bloc will not face a smooth ride to power either.
SRS claimed 81 of the 250 seats in the assembly, but its coalition potential remains limited owing to the party's history of backing the late Slobodan Milosevic's regime.
Acting SRS chief Tomislav Nikolic - the party president Vojislav Seselj is on trial for war crimes at The Hague-based UN tribunal - declared victory but expressed disappointment over falling short of an absolute majority.
President Boris Tadic's pro-Western Democratic Party (DS) with 65, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) with 48 and G17 Plus with 19, combined for 132 seats and a potential parliamentary majority, though it is far from certain that the three groups are prepared to work together.
Also included in the so-called democratic bloc is the new Liberal Democratic Party, a radically anti-Milosevic splinter of DS, with its 14 seats, as well as seven seats claimed by the Hungarian, Muslim and Roma minority representatives.
But relations between the parties of the democratic bloc effectively fell apart even before the March 2003 assassination of former DS leader and premier Zoran Djindjic, and the gulf between them has remained.
Bad blood between Kostunica and DS leaders spurred him into forming a minority government following the December 2003 polls, with Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) as outside partners instead of DS.
Ahead of Sunday's poll, animosity exploded again when DSS balked at the DS nomination of Bozidar Djelic, the French-educated former finance minister, as its prime ministerial candidate.
A subsequent political brawl may have cost both parties a few votes and has prompted some speculation that Kostunica, seen as a conservative and moderate nationalist, would rather partner with SRS than DS.
'This is the time when talks aimed at the forming of a government begin,' Kostunica said. He refused to say if there was any party with which DSS would not forge an alliance.
Tadic said that DS would insist on the position of the prime minister, adding that he was satisfied after 'democratic parties won a two-third majority in parliament.'
SPS, which recently dropped Milosevic, who died a year ago, as an icon, again won enough votes to qualify for parliament, winning 16 seats, and figures in possible governing combinations that leave out Tadic's DS and LDP.
'I hope we will be able to forget some past times and fights,' G17 leader and former finance minister Mladjan Dinkic said Sunday night.
In any case, the forging of a coalition which would be in line with Western hopes would be 'very difficult,' analyst Vladmir Goati said.
United States and European Union officials had hoped for a civic and moderate DS-led government, particularly as Serbia in very near future faces a number of issues lingering from the violent disintegration of the former Yugoslavia.
Those issues include the resolution of the status of Serbia's breakaway province Kosovo and talks aimed at bringing Belgrade closer to the EU, which were suspended last May over Serbia's reluctance to arrest fugitive war crime suspects.
Sunday's results were largely in line with pre-election forecasts and could still possibly change by a seat or two, with two minority parties close to collecting enough votes to reach the assembly.
Still short of the parliament were representatives of southern Serbian Albanians, who returned to the political mainstream after boycotting elections for nearly two decades.
The early elections were held after the adoption of Serbia's new constitution late last year. Presidential and local elections are still pending this year.
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