Serbian ultra-nationalist party fragments

Oct 10, 2008, 11:53 GMT

Belgrade - The ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS), which won most votes in past three parliamentary polls but never returned to power since falling with Slobodan Milosevic, finally fell apart on Friday.

Acting chief of SRS over the past five years, Tomislav Nikolic, and its secretary general, Aleksandar Vucic, completed their defection by registering the new Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).

Nikolic and Vucic left the SRS, an apparently monolithic power over the past decade and a half, under pressure of extreme hardliners and now aim to draw support of voters who are nationalist but do not wish their country to cut ties with the West.

Some pollsters predicted that the new party was likely quickly to surpass SRS, which remained in opposition after 2003, 2007 and 2008 polls. Despite winning the most seats, its extremism kept coalition partners away.

The SRS remains under tight command of Vojislav Seselj, who was issuing orders over a phone from detention in The Hague, where he has been since early 2003 and is now facing a war crimes trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Nikolic and Vucic were ministers in Serbian and Yugoslav governments which went to war with NATO in 1999 over Kosovo. They were toppled along with the strongman Serbian leader Milosevic eight years ago.