The Constitution obliges Serbian President Boris Tadic to call parliamentary elections not later than March 11th, as they must be held before May 11th. The Constitution treats Kosovo as a part of Serbia, which means that elections should be called for the province of Kosovo as well. Pristina and a great part of international community treat Serbian institutions in Kosovo as equal, so it is almost certain that the elections in the territory of Serbian municipalities will be interpreted as a support to reinforcement of those institutions.
If, therefore, the president obeys the constitution and calls the elections in Kosovo, he will automatically face the danger that Serbian candidacy for the EU, which is most likely on agenda in early March next year, again gets turned down. If, however, he acts differently, or excludes Kosovo from the election process, he will be accused of betraying national interests and similar misdeeds in the arsenal of populist rhetoric, and perhaps he will be threaten with a lawsuit.
Therefore, the position of Serbian authorities is in no way favorable, since any solution they choose poses a potential threat. There might be a back up plan, but at this point it is unclear whether the ruling circles tried to find it at all. In any case, no one has yet mentioned the potential problems with public announcement of the elections. As per the common practice, we will face these problems “when the time comes”, that is, when Serbia again faces the choice “either – or.”
The content of the decision to call elections could significantly affect the ratings of the parties and their electoral performance. Despite the fact that it is very unlikely for a president to violate the Constitution of his own country, we could say that if the candidate status gets rejected again, Tadic will lose a significant part of the support in a very European-oriented part of the electorate who, without hesitation, chose Europe over Kosovo. That part of the public wants results and believes that the ruling parties should have already prepared the ground for a faster joining the EU.
Possible omission of Serbian municipalities in Kosovo in the following parliamentary elections would certainly be used as a hard “weapon” of nationalist-oriented opposition for new attacks on Tadic in election campaign. It is also not certain if all members of the ruling parties are prepared to accept this solution. In addition, the maneuvering space of Serbian president for finding a solution in accordance with the wishes of the leading EU countries is very small.
It seems that the only thing the government can request now is for Washington and Brussels to turn a blind eye for one more time and not to create problems in regards to the announcement of the elections.
Is such an option possible, what would be the consequences of the possible calls for parliamentary elections to political scene in Serbia, to international position of Serbia and to all the Serbs in Kosovo? Dusan Reljic and Petar Miletic are trying to answer these questions for the portal of Novi Magazin.