The nice thing about winning elections
I can do no better than the OSCE in evaluating Serbia’s presidential and parliamentary elections. They were conducted on an “uneven playing field” that favored the incumbent President and parliamentary majority. Media coverage and government resources favored them. There was not much more than a token opposition. Alternation in power was not a real possibility. Serbia has reverted to semi-authoritarianism of a contemporary sort. Lots of political brouhaha, but little real competition.
Serbia’s shame
This is a shame, as it make Serbia a less than ideal candidate for what it says it really wants: EU membership. The EU will be lenient. That is its longstanding habit with Belgrade, which has the great virtue of implementing much of the acquis communautaire. Where Serbia is wanting is implementation of the Cophenhagen criteria for democratic governance.
Not only is its electoral playing field uneven, but Belgrade continues to laud war criminals and fails to prosecute human rights violations during the now more than two-decade-old conflict in Kosovo. It hasn’t even prosecuted the murderers of the American Bytyqi brothers killed in Serbia in 1999. Its press not only ignores past Serbian human rights violations but continues to use hate speech against Kosovars.
In addition, the incumbent government coalition has been enthusiastic for what it terms the “Serb world,” which amounts to little less than Slobodan Milosevic’s Greater Serbia. We see in Ukraine the consequences of irredentist ambitions of this sort. Russian President Putin is likewise fond of the idea of a “Russian world” that denies the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. The result is war and war crimes. The “Serbian world” idea forebodes nothing better. It is a clear and present danger to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Kosovo.
Vucic won his first presidency on a pro-EU platform. He won the second on a pro-Russian one. He has refused to join in sanctions against Russia, while paying lip service to Ukraine’s territorial integrity. It’s a pretty trick, if you can pull it off.
Success entails choices
Still, there is little reason to doubt that President Vucic has the support of the majority of the Serbian electorate. The question is what he will do with his electoral success. He can continue to encourage Serbian world fantasies, or he can decide to make Serbia into a serious candidate for EU membership. The latter will take courage. Vucic’s main political competition comes from ethnic nationalism and ultra-nationalism, not from liberal democrats. The nationalists are not only a political threat, but also a physical one. They killed Prime Minister Djindjic for fear he would give Kosovo away. They could kill again.
Tough choices in Kosovo too
Kosovo Prime Minister Kurti likewise has strong political support. He faces a domestic political scene that generally opposes concessions to Belgrade. He too needs to choose whether to take the political risk of reaching an agreement that will entail compromise with the enemy. The EU, which has been ungenerous to Kosovo in denying it a visa waiver program, complicates his calculus. Whether Brussels would reward Kosovo for an agreement with Serbia is doubtful, not least because countries like France, the Netherlands, and above all Hungary are hostile to Pristina. Promises made might not be kept, as with the visa waiver.
The nice thing about winning elections
Both Vucic and Kurti are now in a position to make choices. I really don’t know what they will do. If the past is a guide, neither will pursue a definitive agreement that ends the standoff between Pristina and Belgrade. But the past is only a guide if people don’t change their minds. We’ll have to wait and see. The nice thing about winning even unfair elections is that you can do what you want.
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