Parliament convened Monday amid signs that an ally of late President Slobodan Milosevic would be elected speaker, signaling a return of Serbia's ultranationalists to power in the troubled Balkan country, according to AP. The conservative party of acting Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said it would support Tomislav Nikolic, a leader of the Serbian Radical Party, to the post _ a highly influential position, third in line behind the president and prime minister. The two parties have a majority in Serbia's 250-seat legislature. The election would make Nikolic the first Serbian nationalist to hold a top job since Milosevic was ousted in 2000 by a popular revolt led by a pro-Western coalition. It also reflects the recent rise in Serbian nationalism, amid prospects that the Kosovo province may gain independence as envisaged by a U.N. plan, and a failure by pro-democratic parties to form a coalition government after Jan. 21 elections. At stake is whether the Balkan country would restart pre-entry talks with the European Union or return to the isolation policies of Milosevic, who died last year while on trial on genocide charges at the U.N. war crimes tribunal. «There's a real danger that Serbia may drift back to nationalism and radicalism,» Mladjan Dinkic, the leader of the pro-Western G-17 Party, said Monday. «I'm really worried.» «The future belongs to us, and you are history,» Radical Party lawmaker Aleksandar Vucic told Parliament, referring to the pro-Western Democratic Party, which had spearheaded Milosevic's ouster. Nikolic is a fierce nationalist known for his anti-Western stands, including demands that Serbia shelve its EU aspirations and focus on maintaining close ties with Russia and China. He also has advocated military intervention in Kosovo if the breakaway ethnic Albanian-populated province becomes independent. The chances of a new, democratic Serbian government diminished over the weekend as Kostunica's conservatives and President Boris Tadic's Democrats failed to agree on key Cabinet posts, despite a May 14 deadline to do so or face new elections that could bring the ultranationalists back to power. Outgoing premier Kostunica _ who succeeded Milosevic after the uprising in 2000, but soon turned against the architects of the toppling _ insists on remaining the leader of a new government. Although his party came in third in the Jan. 21 elections, neither the pro-Western Democrats nor the ultranationalists can form the new government without Kostunica's party votes in the parliament. Kostunica has accused the Democrats of turning down his power-sharing proposal. The Democrats responded by accusing Kostunica, a moderate nationalist, of failing to negotiate «honestly» and instead seeking an excuse to form the government with the ultranationalists. Brussels demands that Belgrade extradite war crimes suspect Gen. Ratko Mladic to the tribunal in the Netherlands to reopen the negotiations with Serbia. Extraditing Mladic, however, depends on who controls Serbia's security services. In the talks with Kostunica, pro-Western President Boris Tadic's Democratic Party has sought control over the intelligence agency, which has failed to capture Mladic during Kostunica's tenure. EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said Monday that he was «troubled by the inability of the reform-oriented and pro-European parties ... to form a government so far, and thus to create preconditions to better cooperation» with the U.N. war crimes tribunal. «This is a litmus test of the rule of law in Serbia,» Rehn said in Brussels. «In spite of the worrying signals coming out of the Serbian Parliament today, I hope the reform-oriented parties will still give careful consideration to the wish of a majority of Serbia's electorate for a European future for Serbia, and act accordingly.»
