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Serbia’s musical chairs

Tomorrow peacefare will publish a piece on international implications of the Serbian elections.  Today Milan Marinković writes from Niš: 

Serbia elected a new president last weekend:  Tomislav Nikolić, the leader of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). Nikolić defeated incumbent Boris Tadić of the Democratic Party (DS) in the second-round runoff of the presidential race.  This comes on top of a parliamentary election in which SNS won the largest number of seats.  The time is coming to form a governing coalition with a majority of votes in parliament.

Nikolić’s victory strengthens Socialist Party leader Ivica Dačić as the kingmaker in postelection negotiations. He is the essential ingredient in either an SNS or a DS dominated coalition.  In a statement following Nikolić’s election, Dačić said that his party’s pre-electoral agreement with DS basically remained in place, but the situation had now become more complex.

Dačić already proved to be an unreliable partner in 2008, when he was also the kingmaker following the parliamentary elections that year. Shortly after Daćić announced that his party had come to terms with the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) and Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), he suddenly jumped ship, defecting to Tadić (DS).

In line with his proven pragmatism, Dačić is now keeping his options open. He knows that Nikolić as president is entitled to offer the mandate to the party of his own chosing.  SNS will be Nikolić’s logical first choice not only because it is his party, but also because it won the largest single portion of the parliamentary seats.

Serbia’s constitution strictly limits the authority of president . His predecessor managed to hold a far greater share of power than the constitution allows due to the fact that his party was the core member of the ruling coalition. Incumbent prime minister Mirko Cvetković was just a figurehead.  Tadić ran the government .

The only way for Nikolić to attain substantial power is to make his party a member of the next government. Otherwise, he will be as weak a president as Mr. Cvetković was a prime minister under Tadić. Nikolić therefore needs to give Dačić an exceptionally attractive offer to lure him away from the coalition with Tadić and DS. And Tadić – or whoever might replace him as the party’s next leader – will then have to offer even more to Dačić in order for DS to stay in power.

Only a grand coalition between Nikolić’s SNS and Tadić’s DS would leave Dačić out in the cold, but that’s a solution Nikolić presumably wants to avoid. Most of the people who voted for Nikolić did so out of their animosity to Tadić. If Nikolić were to ally with his fiercest rival, his voters would no doubt feel betrayed. After nearly a decade of unsuccessful attempts to defeat Tadić in one presidential race after another, Nikolić is unlikely to risk losing the popular support he has finally won in his fourth try, especially given the small margin of his victory.

A less irksome option for Nikolić would be the so-called “cohabitation” with a government in which his party does not participate – i.e. one that involves Tadić’s DS and Dačić’s (inescapable) SPS. That would help Nikolić portray himself as a responsible politician who puts the interest of his country before everything else – including his own and his party’s interests – serving as a “corrective factor” that supervises the government’s actions. Nikolić would thus be able to cooperate with a government that involves Tadić’s party, but without direct participation in an alliance with his main political opponent – something his voters probably could swallow.

If Nikolić wants to avoid cohabitation at all costs, his party and SPS will still need a third coalition partner. The Democratic party of Serbia (DSS), led by a former prime minister Vojislav Koštunica, seems most likely to join in.  DSS publicly supported Nikolić prior to his runoff with Boris Tadić.

Such a government could put the European integration of Serbia at serious risk. DSS is irreconcilably anti-EU and openly pro-Russian. It is unclear what Nikolić could do to persuade Koštunica and his party to soften their stance against the EU.  SNS itself  maintains strong relations with Moscow, recently  formalized in a cooperation agreement with Vladimir Putin’s United Russia.  Some Serbian observers even suspect that SNS is a “Trojan horse” that has infiltrated Serbia’s pro-EU camp on behalf of the Kremlin.

According to opinion polls, Nikolić’s supporters oppose Serbia’s potential membership in the EU despite his official pro-EU position. Nikolić and Dačić share the dark nationalist past of 1990s and have adopted the European agenda only recently.  They both have yet to prove their newfound commitment.

A “nationalist” government composed of SNS, SPS and DSS might most coherently reflect the election results.  Most SPS voters also prefer Nikolić to Tadić, even though Dačić called on them to vote for the latter.  But cohabitation, with DS leading the government but Nikolic in the presidency, would be preferable from a regional and international perspective, which sees risks in a return to a strongly nationalist Serbia.

An additional complication would occur if the SPS were unable to hold the allegiance of its other two electoral coalition members.   That would greatly increase the number of arithmetic possibilities for achieving a parliamentary majority.

Dačić of late has begun to play down his ambition of becoming prime minister, which may suggest that he has realized it would be advisable to avoid the hot seat at a time when a number of unpopular steps will have to be taken and instead patiently wait for a next – more opportune – occasion.

Serbia’s game of musical chairs has begun.  Who will be left out when the music stops?

Chicago holds a key to the Balkans

Soren Jessen-Petersen* and I drafted this piece as an op/ed but it didn’t sell.  Sign of our times–the Balkans are not a priority in Washington, or even in Chicago.  So we are posting it here, in advance of the NATO Summit next weekend.

The Balkans are superficially peaceful this spring.  Serbia held elections May 6, having happily achieved the envied status of a candidate for European Union (EU) membership earlier this spring, as has Montenegro.  Croatia is scheduled to enter the EU next year.  After a long hiatus under a caretaker government, Bosnia is enjoying a moment of relative comity among its notoriously fractious Croats, Serbs and Muslims.  This fall, Kosovo will complete its four and a half-year tutelage under an “international civilian representative” who supervised its independence.

But there are still serious problems that need to be resolved and little sign of progress.  The 49 per cent of Bosnian territory that Serbs govern is without the plurality of its population that was non-Serb before the war.  Its independence-seeking president makes no secret of his resistance to their return and disdain for the government in Sarajevo.  He has succeeded in getting the EU to deal directly with him and his minions on many issues that need to be resolved before Bosnia can even become a candidate for membership.

Kosovo may be independent, but the government in Pristina has no control over the northern 11% of its territory, where the Serb population refuses to accept the substantial autonomy it would be permitted under the internationally negotiated “final status” settlement for Kosovo.

Perhaps the most delicate of today’s Balkans problems lies in Macedonia, whose population is about one-quarter ethnic Albanian.  Small-scale violence between ethnic Albanians and ethnic Macedonians has been all too frequent this spring.  Both groups are nervously watching northern Kosovo, fearing that partition there could lead to heightened ethnic conflict throughout the Balkans and beyond.  Partition could ensue not only in Macedonia but also in Bosnia and Cyprus.

Then there is Chicago.  There is strong support in Macedonia for NATO membership, which could occur at the NATO Summit May 20-21 in the windy city.  But Greece objects to Macedonia using that name, which Athens would like to reserve for itself, claiming that Skopje’s use of it signifies designs on Greek territory as well as history and culture.

Macedonia has completed all the requirements for NATO membership, which include meeting political and economic criteria as well as putting the military under civilian control.  Macedonian soldiers have served with Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they were embedded in fighting units with the Vermont National Guard. The American who commanded the Macedonians in Afghanistan says they were up to U.S. military standards and carried their portion of the burden well.

But Greece will not agree to NATO membership for Macedonia, or a date to begin negotiating its EU membership, unless it changes its name.  Athens has even refused to allow Macedonian NATO membership under the name used for UN membership (The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or The FYROM), despite a 1995 agreement to do so.

This Greek resistance is creating a strong reaction in Macedonia, where the exasperated prime minister benefits politically from defying Athens by renaming the airport after Alexander the Great and putting a statue of him in downtown Skopje.

The International Court of Justice, in a resounding victory for Skopje, decided in December that Athens acted illegally in blocking membership in NATO at the last Summit.  It would be wrong for this injustice to be repeated in Chicago.

NATO and the EU are the two strong poles of attraction that keep the Balkans on the path towards a democratic and prosperous future.  In order to find the political will to proceed with difficult reforms, Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Montenegro need to see the prospect of NATO and EU membership as real.  Macedonia’s entry into NATO at Chicago and Croatia’s entry next year into the EU are the best current opportunities to demonstrate that the region’s aspirations can be fulfilled, solidifying a still fragile peace.

*Daniel Serwer, an American, and Soren Jessen-Petersen, a Dane, teach at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.  They have both worked on and in the Balkans for more than 15 years.

Who is Ivica Dačić?

Milan Marinkovic writes from Niš:

Perhaps Serbia still does not know who is going to be its next president, but I think it knows very well who will be the prime minister

said Serbian incumbent interior minister and the leader of the Socialist party (SPS) Ivica Dačić at his first press conference after preliminary results of Serbian parliamentary elections were announced.  He has even hinted he might also keep the powerful interior ministry portfolio while also taking the prime ministry.

While it came in third, the number of seats SPS has won in Parliament makes Dačić the kingmaker in postelection negotiations over the formation of the next government. Unless the two bigger parties – Democrats (DS) of President Boris Tadić and Progressives (SNS) of Tomislav Nikolić – decide to join forces despite their bitter rivalry, SPS cannot be avoided in any combination that reaches a majority in Parliament. That’s why Dačić is so confident.

According to the latest news, the puzzle seems to be already solved. Officials from Tadić’s DS and Dačić’s SPS told the media that they have reached agreement.  Tadić, who faces a presidential runoff May 20, enigmatically confirmed that he knew who would be the next prime minister, refusing to reveal the name.

Increasing Dačić’s prospects of assuming the post is the fact that Boris Tadić needs his support if he is to defeat Tomislav Nikolić in the second round of the presidential race. What remains unknown is which party will be the third coalition partner. The potential candidates are the United Regions of Serbia (URS), which participated in the outgoing government, and the opposition Liberal democratic party (LDP). If Dačić is going to have the final word, he will probably opt for URS.

Even if Dačić fails in his aspiration to the premiership, he has every reason to celebrate. Since the previous election four years ago he has managed to become the second most influential politician in the country, having doubled both his own and the party’s popularity. The two stronger parties – DS and SNS – won higher percentages of votes than SPS but came in well below their own – and most analysts’ – expectations. Ivica Dačić thus appears to be the one who best understands what the average voter wants to hear.

What could the policy of a government he heads look like?

In a recent statement, Dačić said he would remain committed to the process of European integration but stressed that he was not going to accept any foreign ultimatums, no matter if they come from Brussels, Washington or Moscow. “I only listen to Serbian people,” Dačić concluded.

When it comes to Kosovo, Dačić will prove assertive, as he continues to insist that partition would be the best solution, disregarding potentially adverse consequences of such an idea and international opposition to it. But Dačić is a prudent pragmatist who knows his (and his country’s) limits, so it is unlikely he would dare to cross the line and seize the northern part of Kosovo.  He is just as unlikely to agree to put it under Pristina’s sovereignty.

Probably the same pragmatism will moderate his behavior towards Bosnia.  Dačić often makes provocative remarks suggesting independence for its Serb-controlled half, Republika Srpska.  The situation in Bosnia is troublesome enough even without  sniping from Belgrade.

Altogether, the way Serbia has so far dealt with the these issues should not be expected to undergo any notable shifts, at least in the short term. Apart from Dačić’s contentious rheoric, the country’s foreign policy will basically remain as ambigous as it already is.

Currently more challenging for Serbian government is the question of what it intends to do in the coming months to solve the problems it is facing at home. Prominent economists are warning that Serbia, among other things, must urgently undertake a stringent fiscal reform with emphasis on budget cuts if it wants to escape the Greek scenario. The incumbent government has been delaying reform for fear of popular unrest.  The likely composition of the incoming government suggests that procrastination will persist.  But there is a catch-22: the existing state of the economy is such that popular unrest could prove inevitable anyway

The failure to reform the security sector has contributed to the failure of reforms in other areas, since many factions within the apparatus that served as the backbone of Slobodan Milošević’s regime have never been disbanded. Once an important figure of Milošević’s inner circle, Ivica Dačić could be an ideal person to carry out security sector reform, but his electoral constituency is rooted partly in the security services.  It might well be in his interest that the old guard in security services remains intact.  His inclination as interior minister has been more in the direction of centralization than serious reform.

Reports are now emerging from a Hungarian party in Vojvodina (an autonomous province in northern Serbia) and from Nikolic about election irregularities.  This is the first time since the fall of Milošević that serious accusations of election theft have been lodged.  It will be interesting to see how they are resolved.