Serb Parliament Elects Tomislav Nikolic

The Serbian parliament elected a hardline nationalist as speaker on Tuesday.

The Serbian parliament elected a hardline nationalist as speaker on Tuesday, drawing condemnation from the European Union and stirring bitter memories of the rule of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.

Tomislav Nikolic of the ultranationalist Radical Party won a comfortable majority, backed by the Democratic Party of Serbia of outgoing Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, a moderate nationalist, and by Milosevic's weakened Socialists.

The Radicals' populism harks back to the era of Milosevic, who led the country into four wars in the 1990s. Overthrown in 2000, he was sent to the U.N. tribunal on war crimes charges, and found dead in his cell of heart failure last year.

The Radicals oppose handing fugitive general Ratko Mladic to the war crimes court, a key European Union demand blocking Serbia's membership hopes. They are cool to the EU and NATO, and suspicious of economic liberalism and market reforms.

"Nikolic is the embodiment of all we fought against on October 5," said former finance minister Mladjan Dinkic, referring to the date Milosevic was overthrown.

Dinkic's party boycotted Nikolic's inaugural session, which featured random musings, insults and complaints.

In one rowdy interlude, Nikolic said he hoped Russia would "bring together states that are against United States hegemony".

"I hope the majority in Serbia ... will aim for membership in such an organisation, not in the EU," he said, adding that Serbia was "unfortunately not a Russian province".

When one MP complained about his "offensive" lapel pin, he said: "You'd perhaps like to pick out my shirt and underwear?"

The Jan. 21 election produced a hung parliament. Nikolic's election was the first sign of a working majority after weeks of fruitless coalition talks between Kostunica and the Democrats of pro-Western President Boris Tadic .

Kostunica's support for Nikolic was seen as a possible precursor to an alliance with the Radicals, or an effort to pressurise Tadic into joining Kostunica on his terms.

If there is no government by May 14, new elections must be called. The campaign could coincide with the traumatic loss of Serbia's Kosovo province, whose Albanian majority expects to win independence by the summer with Western backing.

WORRYING SIGNALS

The EU, wary of a nationalist backlash on Kosovo, has urged Kostunica and Tadic to unite and Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said on Tuesday the signals from Belgrade were "worrying".

An EU delegation due to sign a visa relaxation deal for Serbs cancelled its visit for "technical reasons".

"Serbia has to choose between the nationalist past and ... a European future," Rehn said in Brussels. Parties should consider voters' wishes for a European future and "act accordingly".

Tadic, the EU's strongest ally in Serbia, called Nikolic's win "very damaging". But he still made a conciliatory gesture to Kostunica, asking Serbia's "progressive forces" to "show responsibility" at the eleventh hour.

Most analysts, however, saw no coalition.

"Even if (Tadic and Kostunica) reach a deal, it wouldn't last long," said analyst Dejan Vuk Stankovic.

"Elections loom," said newspaper Glas Javnosti, which quoted Nikolic as saying the Radicals, Serbia's strongest party in the election, would not back anyone's government.

The Radical leader, Vojislav Seselj, is on trial at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. The Radicals accuse the West of bias in blaming Serbia for the Yugoslav wars and of wanting to take away Kosovo unjustly.