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Nikolić gets his break

This is a somewhat more detailed and updated version of a piece The National Interest published this morning as “Serbian Transition Worries West”:

On his fourth try, Tomislav Nikolić won Serbia’s presidential election Sunday, defeating incumbent Boris Tadić by a narrow margin.  Turnout was low.  The number of ruined ballots was high.  The electoral mechanism appears to have worked smoothly, freely and fairly.

Nikolić’s victory in this second round of the presidential election comes on the heels of his party’s victory in the parliamentary polls, which gave it the largest number of seats.  A majority of Serbs was fed up with a leadership that had failed to deliver jobs, economic vitality, sufficient progress in Serbia’s efforts to gain membership in the European Union, or Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo.

An ethnic nationalist with a history of support to Slobodan Milošević and of close ties to radical nationalist and war crimes indictee Vojislav Šešelj, Nikolić broke from Šešelj in 2008.  Allegations that Nikolić committed war crimes in Croatia in the early 1990s have not been proven in court, and he won a related defamation suit in 2009.

Since breaking with Šešelj, Nikolić has taken a more pro-Europe line, while maintaining promises of never recognizing the independence of Kosovo.   In this, he is no different from Tadić, who however had convinced Brussels and Washington of his bona fides.   American and European officials will be nervous about Nikolić, whose recent moderation they worry could be tactical.

How should Europe and the United States react to Nikolić’s election?  Calmly and purposefully.  The purpose should be to bring about genuine and deep reform in Serbia, which has failed in the more than 10 years since Milošević’s fall to purge fully its security services,  investigate high-level involvement in war crimes and hiding of war criminals, give up its control of northern Kosovo or support the establishment of a viable Bosnian central government.  Washington and Brussels have put up with this, fearing that a tough line would undermine Tadić at the polls and strengthen nationalists like Nikolić.

The coddling of Tadić has not worked.  Tadić sought credit with nationalist voters by promising never to recognize Kosovo’s independence and supporting the Serb entity in Bosnia to the hilt.  Its increasingly nationalist president campaigned openly for Tadić, who failed for years to provide the support to expensive international efforts in Kosovo and Bosnia that would make them successful.

Some in Brussels and Washington will still want to play their hand in formation of the new government by pushing for Tadić’s Democratic Party to lead the majority in parliament and “cohabit” with President Nikolić.  That may be the way things will turn out, even though Nikolić’s party won more seats, if the Democratic Party alliance with  Ivica Dačić holds. Some think such an arrangement would enable Serbia to make policy adjustments that Tadić was unwilling to make on his own, for fear Nikolić and others would benefit.

But there is no reason to believe that a Democratic Party-led government coalition under a Nikolić presidency will necessarily prove better from an American or European perspective than the outgoing Democratic Party-led government under Tadić.  Cohabitation could allow Tadić to continue promising without delivering, with the blame cast on Nikolić.  Washington and Brussels should look this gift horse in the mouth, trying to ensure that it is truly committed to a course they can support before encouraging or rewarding it.

If Nikolić forms a government without the Democratic Party, prying Dačić away from his alliance with the Democrats and relying on other more conservative nationalists like former prime minister Vojislav Koštunica, the result would be far more coherent.  Washington and Brussels would then be free to push hard for real policy changes.

But it is unclear whether Nikolić would in fact choose the EU path over closer ties with Russia, where he is planning to make his first foreign visit since the election.  If Nikolić chooses to align Serbia more closely with Moscow, that won’t make anyone in Washington or Brussels happy, but it will relieve them of the burden of worrying about Serbia’s “Atlantic” orientation.

Alternation in power is an essential feature of truly democratic systems.  It has now happened in Serbia for the first time since the fall of Milošević.  Europe and the United States should recognize in these elections a clear expression of the will of Serbia’s people:  like others in Europe, they wanted change.  In Serbia the only viable alternative was the more nationalist, less pro-European variety.

What Brussels and Washington need to do now is draw clear red lines that both can support wholeheartedly, no matter who gains power in Belgrade.  Once the new parliamentary majority is formed and the government appointed, they should ask Serbia, which will seek a date to begin negotiations for European Union membership, to end its resistance to Kosovo’s independence, to push the Bosnian Serbs towards full acceptance of the Sarajevo government and to begin deep reform of the security services.  There is no reason to coddle Nikolić, who in the past has proven himself pragmatic when faced with clear and forceful requirements.