Serbs vote for closer ties to Europe in big turnaround available (Roundup)

May 11, 2008, 21:39 GMT

Belgrade - Serbs voted strongly for closer ties with Europe in crucial parliamentary elections Sunday, handing a stinging, unexpected defeat to nationalist parties that appealed to resentment over the loss of Kosovo.

President Boris Tadic's pro-European coalition won the most votes for the new parliament, polling a projected 39 per cent.

At his Belgrade campaign headquarters, Tadic popped a huge champagne bottle and said his party would lay claim to the prime minister's post held until now by the increasingly nationalist Vojislav Kostunica.

But he reaffirmed his stand, shared by virtually all Serb parties, that he would never accept Kosovo's February declaration of independence from Serbia.

'The citizens of Serbia showed they want Serbia in the EU and Serbia will be in the EU,' Tadic said. 'That is our first strategic goal.'

'Our second strategic goal is preservation of territorial integrity and sovereignty of Serbia. The new government will never accept Kosovo's independence and will fight with all diplomatic and political means against it,' he said.

Slovenia, currently holding the EU presidency, welcomed the 'clear victory of pro-European forces' and said it hopes to see a new government with a 'clear European agenda' quickly in place in Belgrade.

   A bitter Kostunica, speaking to reporters, ruled out cooperation with Tadic's party, saying their differences 'cannot be bridged.'

Tadic's supporters, most of them young, spilled into the capital's streets as news of their victory spread, waving flags and banners and honking their car horns.

Vote projections by the independent Center for Free Election and Democracy gave the anti-Western bloc of the main opposition Radicals (SRS) 29 per cent of the vote and Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) 11.6 per cent.

Both parties were projected to lose seats - the SRS four seats to 77 and Kostunica's party 17 for a new tally of 30.  

   Tadic's Democratic Party was expected to win 103 seats. With a projected 13 seats for his Liberal Democratic allies and the votes of ethnic minority representatives, the pro-European camp appeared close to a majority in the 250-seat Belgrade assembly.

He said he would hold coalition talks with any party whose goals include EU membership, better living standards for Serbs and handing over long-sought suspects to the Hague war crimes tribunal.

The anti-Western bloc retained a theoretical, but very unlikely chance of assembling a majority with several coalition partners.  

   Kostunica and the Radicals, the big losers on the night, had campaigned on pledges to turn Serbia away from EU membership talks in protest at Western support of Kosovo's secession.

The late Slobodan Milosevic's Socialist Party (SPS) did slightly better than forecast by winning 8 per cent, or a projected 20 seats, making it a possible coalition partner for either of the two big blocs.

The vote was closely watched by Serbia's neighbours and the European Union, which signed a pre-membership agreement with Belgrade shortly before the election hoping to boost the pro-Europe camp.

The EU's gamble may have worked. A poll shortly before the election showed that the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA), denounced by Serbian nationalist parties as a sellout of Kosovo, was actually supported by up to one-third of their voters.

Turnout was about 61 per cent, Cesid said, lower than expected after Serb politicians drummed up the election for weeks as crucial for the nation's course.

   The outcome - and the turnaround from pre-election polls - are a carbon copy of the presidential election in January and February, in which Tadic was underdog to SRS candidate Tomislav Nikolic but, after trailing in surveys and losing the first-round vote, clearly won in the run-off on February 3.