It looks like another rough day for Serbian politics today -- four indicted war criminals are running for parliament.
The elections could result in seats for at least two of them, Slobodan Milosevic and a former associate. They won't be taking those seats, since both are in jail in The Hague, awaiting or undergoing trial. But their election will deal a prestige blow to European and US hopes of fostering a pro-Western democratic leadership.
Three years after Milosevic was overthrown and a decade of Balkan wars neared their end, Serbians have become disillusioned with democracy. That's evident from their failure, three times in a row, to get a big enough turnout to elect a president.
PHOTO: AFP
Today's election is likely to be just as inconclusive. Polls are predicting the Radical Party will win the most seats in the 250-member parliament, but not enough to form a majority coalition.
The Radical Party's lead candidate is Vojislav Seselj, a former Milosevic associate. Before he was jailed pending trial for alleged war crimes during the Balkan wars, his claims to fame included spitting at the parliament speaker and brandishing a handgun in front of the parliament building.
The Radicals are projected to win 24 percent of the vote, and the Socialists, who are running Milosevic, 8 percent. The closest pro-democracy grouping is G-17 at 21 percent.
The poll published Monday of 1,500 people by the Strategic Marketing agency did not state a margin of error.
Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic of the pro-democracy bloc expects many will vote for the extremists to show their disaffection with the West and three years of market reforms that have left them little better off than under Milosevic.
"Even Hitler came to power through democratic elections," Zivkovic told The Associated Press, equating the wave of anti-Western feeling with Germany's sense of betrayal after World War I.
Although average monthly salaries have tripled to the equivalent of about US$300 since Milosevic fell, prices of some basics like household electricity have increased tenfold. Industrial production has dropped by 3 percent this year, and privatization of state-owned companies has helped to drive up unemployment to about 30 percent.
Fractures in the pro-democracy bloc that took over after Milosevic's fall and allegations of widespread corruption have left Serbs hugely disappointed.
The Radicals, meanwhile, have toned down their nationalist rhetoric and focused their election campaign on promising cheap bread, effective government and the revision of allegedly corrupt privatization deals.
This has spread their appeal beyond the nationalist fringe to ordinary folk like Dragan Pavlov, unemployed since the state-run bank where he worked went bankrupt amid government efforts to reform the economy.
"Month after month, year after year, it's getting only worse for me, for my family, for thousands of others," he said. "The big shots in government are getting richer and richer and telling me that things are going in the right direction -- sure, but only for them."
European Union and U.S. officials voice a preference for the pro-democracy bloc, but do so cautiously, lest their endorsement backfire in the nationalists' favor.
Many Serbs still harbor resentment over the NATO bombing in 1999 to force Milosevic to relinquish Kosovo province. They believe the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Hague is just the latest in a long line of international institutions that are biased against the Serb nation.
Radical Party candidate Tomislav Nikolic, who won the most votes Nov. 16 in the last failed presidential vote, says his party wants a land that unites all Serbians -- an allusion to the ideology that fueled the bloody Serb rebellions in Croatia and Bosnia supported by Milosevic.
Zivkovic blames the West for some of this hostility, suggesting that it pushed his pro-democracy coalition into making mistakes that fed disenchantment with reforms.
Political scientist Carlos Yordan says many Serbs will vote for the Radicals for the same reason that kept Milosevic in power for 10 years -- a sense of "victimization, the belief that the outside world does not understand Serbia, and a strong sense of national pride."
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese