STEVE INSKEEP, host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning, I'm Steve Inskeep.
Serbia held parliamentary elections yesterday. Western governments had hoped that six years after the ouster of Slobodan Milosevic, that Serb voters would reject ultra nationalism. That didn't happen.
NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports from Belgrade.
SYLVIA POGGIOLI: In the days leading up to the vote, American and European officials made urgent appeals to Serbs to vote for the democratic parties. But the results showed that the radicals - whose leader, Vojislav Seselj, is in prison in the Hague awaiting trial at the War Crimes Tribunal - can still count on a bedrock of support from nearly one-third of the electorate.
Nevertheless, political commentator Braca Grubacic believes there's little chance the radicals can come to power.
Mr. BRACA GRUBACIC (Political Commentator): Because simply their coalition capacity is very low, and nobody wants to go with them. They're (unintelligible) the president who is indicted in the Hague.
POGGIOLI: The pro-Western democratic party of President Boris Tadic came in second with 23 percent, a large gain from the 2003 elections, but not enough to govern alone. The more conservative party of outgoing Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica came in third with 16 percent. Tadic and Kostunica were allies in the battle to ouster Milosevic in 2000, but they've since become bitter rivals.
Kostunica is known to want to hold on to the premiership, and in order to do so, he could dangle the threat of joining forces with the radicals. So Kostunica could become the king maker in what are likely to be long, drawn-out and difficult negotiations.
Whatever government coalition is formed, it will have to deal with painful economic reforms and the difficult issues of cooperation with the War Crimes Tribunal and the disputed province of Kosovo.
Serbia will try to resume talks with the European Union, which were suspended eight months ago because of the failure of the Kostunica government to capture and deliver former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic to the War Crimes Tribunal, where he's charged with genocide.
And the issue of Kosovo is even more complicated. The province - the overwhelming majority of whose population is ethnic Albanian - is still seen by Serbs as the cradle of their nation. Western governments had hoped a progressive reformist Serbian government would not raise objections to an imminent U.N. plan to grant Kosovo some form of independence.
Commentator Grubacic says this would have been the perfect solution for the West.
Mr. GRUBACIC: Unfortunately, this didn't happen the way they expected. They had too much of a wishful thinking and huge expectations. And I do think that the Kosovo politics of Serbian government will not be changed.
POGGIOLI: U.N. Envoy Martti Ahtisaari is expected to make his Kosovo independence proposal public at the end of this week. But even before the Serb election results were known, Kosovo had become the object of a new international dispute.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has sided with Belgrade, threatening to use Russia's U.N. Security Council veto power to block any Kosovo plan objectionable to the Serbs. China has made similar threats.
And even the Western front is showing signs of disagreement. Several EU members such as Spain, Greece, Romania and Italy have expressed concern that a Kosovo secession could be a dangerous precedent for other independence-minded regions in Europe and elsewhere.
Vladeta Jankovic, adviser to Prime Minister Kostunica, says Serbia is also worried an independent Kosovo could unleash a domino effect throughout the Balkans.
Dr. VLADETA JANKOVIC (Adviser to Prime Minister Kostunica): What could happened in Western Macedonia, which is populated by 85 percent of Albanians? What be happen in southern Serbia, where you have against huge proportion of Albanian population in the so-called (unintelligible) Valley? What will happen in eastern Montenegro, where you have majority Albanian municipalities? Finally, what about northwestern Greece?
POGGIOLI: Jankovic says the principles of the U.N. Charter - territorial sovereignty and inviolability of borders - must be respected. But, he adds, Belgrade is willing to grant full autonomy to Kosovo.
Dr. JANKOVIC: What we want is Albanians to have full power in Kosovo. Everything short of membership in the United Nations and their military, they must not have the (unintelligible). They will have complete self rule with minimal, reasonable guarantees for Serbian - remaining Serbian population - for their physical safety, and, you know, for your basic human rights.
POGGIOLI: Stability in the Balkans is the major concern of European Union leaders. Many of them have suggested a continued round of negotiations to try to bring Serbs and ethnic Albanians to a compromised solution. At the same time, the Kosovo issue now has repercussions beyond the Balkans. It's creating new tensions between the West and Russia. And its solution maybe found among leaders in Washington, Brussels and Moscow.
Sylvia Poggioli, NPR News, Belgrade. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
