SERBIA: ULTRANATIONALIST PARLIAMENT SPEAKER REJECTS EU AND U.S. HEGEMONY

SERBIA: ULTRANATIONALIST PARLIAMENT SPEAKER REJECTS EU AND U.S. HEGEMONY
By AKI
Published: May 10, 2007

Ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS) leader Tomislav Nikolic, who was elected as Serbian parliament speaker on Tuesday, has called on Russia to form a political bloc against the United States and European domination. Replying to his critics and to signals from the EU officials in Brussels that his election would return Serbia to the international isolation of late president Slobodan Milosevic's rule in the 1990s, Nikolic said he hoped that "Russia would invent some form of association of countries opposed to American hegemony and to the European Union."

"That’s my position and I hope that majority in Serbia will share the stands of the SRS and strive for membership of such an organisation and not in the European Union,” Nikolic said. “Unfortunately, Serbia isn’t a Russian province, but neither can it be a European colony,” he added.

After three and a half months of deadlocked negotiations on forming a “democratic bloc” government after the 21 January general election, prime minister Vojislav Kostunica threw his weight behind Nikolic as parliament president, virtually extinguishing any hope of a new government being formed before next Monday's deadline and paving the way for new elections.

The move widened the rift between Kostunica and president Boris Tadic, with Kostunica accusing the president of "taking orders from abroad," and Tadic blaming the prime minister for blocking Serbia’s European prospects.

Amid criticism over Nikolic’s election from Brussels, Russian ambassador to Belgrade Aleksandar Alekseev visited Nikolic in parliament ate on Tuesday and congratulated him on his election. Alekseev said the election of a parliament speaker was “an internal Serbian matter," adding that “any choice of our Serbian friends is acceptable to Russia."

Tadic's centre-left Democratic Party (DS) came second in the January elections, after the SRS, which is traditionally the strongest single party. Tadic said the DS would allow Kostunica to retain the premiership, provided was allocated most ministries. Kostunica has rejected this deal. His centre-right Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) came third in the January polls.