Please Wait...

Leader of Martyrs: Sayyed Nasrallah

 

Serbian Kosovo rift widens, government dissolved

Serbian Kosovo rift widens, government dissolved
folder_openInternational News access_time16 years ago
starAdd to favorites

Source: Agencies, 11-03-2008
The coalition government of Serbia has been formally dissolved paving the way for an early parliamentary election.
The dissolution comes amid disputes over Kosovo's independence and the Balkan country's future in the European Union.
The decision was taken on Monday at a brief cabinet session following the announcement from Vojislav Kostunica, the Serbian prime minister, that the government could not continue in office owing to deep disunity over defending Kosovo versus pursuing a place in the European Union.
Formed in May, the government has lurched from crisis to crisis with Kostunica's party hardening its anti-Western rhetoric and going outside the coalition to seek support in parliament from hard-line nationalists.
Serbia faces renewed uncertainty today under a caretaker government that will lead the country into its most important election since voters ended the era of the late autocrat Slobodan Milosevic.
A division over the importance of Kosovo versus future European Union membership killed off the 10-month-old coalition of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica at the weekend. Parliament is due to be dissolved this week and a date set for an early parliamentary election, probably on May 11.
Kosovo's decision to break away has fed tensions, with most Serbs deeply opposed to losing a territory they consider to be a historic heartland.
Tadic, also the head of the Democrats, said on Sunday that attempts to divide Serbs into patriots and traitors over Kosovo would backfire at the polls.
But Mr Kostunica's fractured Government will have to soldier on at reduced capacity until the nation chooses its fate.
"The election will be a referendum on whether Serbia takes a European path or becomes isolated, like Albania under (Stalinist dictator) Enver Hoxha," Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac of the pro-Western Democratic Party told the daily Politika.
Pro-Western President Boris Tadic is expected to confirm a poll will be held in May after Mr Kostunica declared his party would withdraw from government in protest at its continued commitment to joining the EU.
The vote will be seen as a referendum on the country's future, either towards Brussels or into Russian-backed isolationism, just as Mr Tadic's victory in presidential elections last month was interpreted as a sign that Serbia would face West.
The increasingly nationalistic Mr Kostunica, who agreed to form a Government with Mr Tadic last May, has denounced the EU after 18 of its 27 members recognised the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo when it declared independence last month.
One of the election's key flashpoints is likely to be the fate of about 100,000 Serbs in Kosovo, who will find themselves disenfranchised.
Mr Sutanovac, vice-president of Mr Tadic's Democratic Party, said: "The vote will be a referendum on Serbia's European perspective - or on its isolation."
Serbian voters "have already delivered their judgment in the presidential elections, but it is obvious that some politicians did not understand what the Serbian citizens want", he said.
Mr Kostunica has insisted Serbia should resume talks on joining the EU only if European countries repudiate their "illegal" recognition of Kosovo, a policy that would effectively rule out membership.
He has pledged to convene the cabinet today to propose a dissolution of Parliament and national elections for May 11, when local elections were due to be held.
"The Government of Serbia has no united policy any more on an important issue related to the future of the country - Kosovo as a part of Serbia," Mr Kostunica said.
"Such a government could not function any more."
Mr Tadic has sought to keep the issues to EU membership and Kosovo's status separate.
"Elections are the democratic way to overcome political crises and the people are the only ones who have the right to decide which is the way forward for Serbia." he said.
Confident Europe
Dimitrij Rupel, the Slovenian foreign minister, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, said he hoped for a victory for pro-European parties in the poll.
"To be quite frank, I don't think there is any other possibility for our Serbian friends than the European Union. Where should they go?" he told reporters on Monday, ahead of talks with his EU counterparts in Brussels.
Rupel said he had seen some "encouraging signs" in that direction, including opinion poll results, and protests by students and intellectuals.
"We have a good opportunity for the people of Serbia to choose their way forward," Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, Said.
"I hope very much they will continue to push for a relationship deep and solid with the EU," he said.
"It's an opportunity for Serbia to choose a European course more firmly than they've done so far," Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister and a respected negotiator in the Balkans during the wars of the 1990s, said.

Breaking news