Tadic Offers Lifeline to Serbia's Tottering Government

Serbia’s governing parties suffered a defeat in this week’s local elections, but will not be toppled for some time owing to the backing of Serbia’s president, Boris Tadic, and his party.

Though two opposition parties, Tadic’s Democratic Party, DS, and the Serbian Radical Party, SRS, triumphed in the poll, the result will not, therefore, spell the downfall of the ruling coalition, led by Vojislav Kostunica, the leader of the Democratic Party of Serbia, DSS.

The electoral commission has not yet counted all the votes from the municipalities and cities where balloting took place on September 19.

But it is clear the pro-western DS and the hardline nationalist SRS effectively divided the spoils between them.

The results in most municipalities echoed the score in the capital, Belgrade. There, the DS candidate for the post of mayor, Nenad Bogdanovic, won 33 per cent of the vote, as opposed to 29 per cent for his Radical rival, Aleksandar Vucic.

Kostunica's DSS nominee for the mayor’s post, Zoran Drakulic, trailed on 15 per cent, while candidates of the government’s smaller partners, G17 Plus, the Serbian Renewal Movement, SPO, and New Serbia, NS, won less than 5 per cent each.

While DS and SRS candidates came top of the list, the two parties will not be able to form majority local governments in most towns without backing from the DSS, which in most areas was runner-up.

Vladimir Goati, a political analyst, says the new balance of power poses a problem for Kostunica’s government, which now faces a “sharp asymmetry in the relationship between its power in parliament, and [its power] at local level”.

“This may be solved in three ways,” Goati added. “One is a government reshuffle, the second is new parliamentary elections and the third is for the government to be absolutely passive and just plod on.”

In spite of receiving a serious electoral blow for the second time – the first fell in June, when Tadic trounced the DSS in the presidential ballot - analysts suggest Kostunica will continue as prime minister for some time before going for early parliamentary elections.

Though the government enjoys the support of only about one-fifth of the electorate, according to surveys, its informal alliance with the increasingly powerful Tadic may keep it afloat.

In fact, the results of the local elections and the new balance of power may even strengthen the alliance between the DS and DSS.

The two democratic parties have long been bitter rivals, after working earlier as allies against the regime of Slobodan Milosevic in the Nineties.

Relations between them were especially poor when Serbia’s late prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, led the DS. However, a rapprochement started when Tadic took over, an event that coincided with the DS becoming an opposition party last December.

After winning the presidential election, Tadic restored his party’s popular standing, since when the DS has become the strongest single party, alongside the Radicals.

At the same time, Tadic has carefully avoided breaking up the government, lending Kostunica his passive support.

As a result, although the Radicals have offered to form an alliance with the DS after the local elections in most municipalities, the DSS is expected to team up in Serbia’s town halls with the DS.

Zoran Stojiljkovic, an analyst from the Faculty of Political Science in Belgrade, told the media the DSS was in two minds about its future course.

The party is torn between “whether to support the Radicals, owing to their national[ist] dimension”, or whether to join a pro-western bloc, led by the DS, he said.

“The DSS will weigh up the possibilities but I think it will quickly decide to form coalition with the Democrats,” Stojiljkovic added.

Zoran Drakulic, DSS candidate for the post of Belgrade mayor, confirmed this option on September 21, not only expressing support for forming local DSS–DS coalitions but also for the DS entering the government.

“It is very important for the DS to take part in government,” he told IWPR. “A party with such support should not be in the opposition.”

Regardless of whether the DS enters the government, or offers support from outside, Kostunica’s cabinet will be able to continue.

According to a source close to the DSS leadership, Kostunica and Tadic have reached an agreement on forming local coalitions, as well as on supporting each other’s candidates in the second round of the local elections, on October 3.

According to this source, Tadic’s support will enable the government to pass its draft of a new constitution through parliament. Under this scenario, Kostunica would only resign and call extraordinary parliamentary elections some time over the winter, after the constitution is adopted.

Analysts say that regardless of Drakulic’s invitation, Tadic’s party is unlikely to enter the government, mainly because it is not now in the DS’s interest to form part of an administration facing several unpopular decisions.

This autumn, it has to confront demands for the extradition of four Serbian generals, accused for war crimes, to the Hague tribunal.

Kostunica will have to wrestle also with Serbia’s almost insoluble social and economic problems. As the electors continue to punish the DSS for its “failure” over the economy, its support is likely to continue ebbing steadily away.

According to Djordje Vukadinovic, editor of Nova Srpska Politicka Misao, popular opposition to the generals’ extradition, combined with social unrest and pressure from the West, might yet upset the DS’s calculations, and bring down the ruling coalition after all. “This may happen, quite independently of anyone’s wishes,” he said.

Zeljko Cvijanovic is a regular Belgrade-based IWPR contributor.