SERBIA:Serbia's prime minister may want others to take the first sip of the poisoned chalice of Kosovo, writes Daniel McLaughlin
It is in keeping with the often perverse nature of Serbian politics that the winners of Sunday's election are relishing the chance to stay in opposition, while a party that is being beckoned into government is showing little enthusiasm for the prospect.
While celebrating a comfortable victory, the ultra-nationalist Radical Party is already predicting the downfall of an expected liberal coalition government with a zeal that it usually reserves for lauding the likes of Slobodan Milosevic and Ratko Mladic and vowing to prevent Kosovo from gaining independence.
The Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) meanwhile, which came third in the vote, remains icily aloof from talk of a match with the second-placed Democrats that would unite Serbia's main, broadly liberal parties in an alliance that Brussels would bless.
The problem for the Democrats, the consolation for the Radicals, and the dilemma for the DSS is that power in Serbia currently comes served in a poisoned chalice engraved with the word "Kosovo".
No one wants to go down in Serb history as having been anywhere near the levers of power when Belgrade lost Kosovo, the heart of Serbia since the Middle Ages, home to dozens of medieval Orthodox churches and monasteries and site of a legendary 1389 battle during which much of the Serb elite perished fighting the Ottomans.
But this month a United Nations envoy is likely to recommend independence for Kosovo, whose overwhelming ethnic-Albanian majority will settle for nothing less.
The Radicals, and DSS prime minister Vojislav Kostunica, have vowed never to recognise it as a sovereign state, while President Tadic, the Democrats' leader, has gone as far as he dares by telling Serbs to prepare for the worst, since the final decision will not be made by Belgrade.
The Radicals now look forward to demonising Mr Tadic and the next government as the team that gave away Kosovo - despite that outcome being likely ever since Nato bombs forced the Radicals' ally, the late Slobodan Milosevic, to end a bloody crackdown on the region's separatists in 1999.
Knowing that the West fears unrest in the region unless its status is resolved quickly, Mr Kostunica may delay his entry into a coalition until most of the Kosovo flak has struck Mr Tadic, after which his support may be of even greater value to the nascent coalition and he will be able to push harder to retain his post as prime minister.
If he does retain this post, the EU will expect him to do more to catch war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic than he has done during his first three years in power.
The majority of the nationalist vote went to the Radicals on Sunday. But most of their supporters were not hard-right bigots but poor people who feel no benefit from the free market and see the West as a bully that made Serbia the scapegoat for the wars in Yugoslavia and then bombed it for legitimately combating insurgents in Kosovo.
The EU said it would seek closer ties with Serbia if democratic parties prevailed in the election. Brussels must now judge adroitly between wielding the stick over Kosovo and Mladic and proffering the carrot of financial aid and political inclusion, to hold Serbia to its international commitments while fostering the hope and progress that might best erode public support for unpalatable partners like the Radicals.