Pressure on Serbia's Socialists mounts to form government

SERBIA:A WEEK after finely balanced general elections, pressure is mounting on Serbia's Socialists to form a coalition government with either pro-western parties who want to push for EU accession, or hard-line nationalists who want to freeze ties with Brussels, writes Daniel McLaughlin.

The Socialists, who were pariahs among Serb and foreign liberals when led by the autocratic Slobodan Milosevic, have held coalition talks with the nationalists while refusing to rule out an alliance with the pro-EU bloc led by president Boris Tadic's Democratic party.

Mr Tadic's supporters claimed 102 seats in the election, followed by the ultra-nationalist Radical party with 78 seats and its ally, the DSS party of prime minister of Vojislav Kostunica, with 30 seats.

With backing from another liberal group and some of the small ethnic parties in parliament, the Socialists' 20 seats would take Mr Tadic's bloc past the 126 seats needed for a majority in the assembly. They would do the same for the nationalist alliance.

"We are very close . . . I really don't understand why the talks should fail between two parties with almost the same ideology," Radicals leader Tomislav Nikolic told a Serb newspaper yesterday, when negotiations on a coalition continued.

The nationalists want to freeze ties with the EU because it backs Kosovo's independence, while the liberals - who also refuse to accept Kosovo's sovereignty - say Belgrade must continue to pursue EU membership.

Mr Tadic and his supporters say they are committed to a partnership with a party that is still closely associated with their former nemesis, Slobodan Milosevic.

In 2003, Milosevic loyalists assassinated Mr Tadic's predecessor as leader of the Democrats - reformist prime minister Zoran Djindjic - in revenge for his campaign to oust the hard-line president and to halt his planned crackdown on organised crime.

Current leader Ivica Dacic has sought to distance himself from Milosevic's bloody, nationalist legacy by focusing on job creation and social justice, but the outlook of the Socialists' old guard and much of their rank-and-file is much closer to that of Mr Nikolic than Mr Tadic.