SERBIA: TADIC LAUNCHES COALITION NEGOTIATIONS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BELGRADE 000132 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM SR SUBJECT: SERBIA: TADIC LAUNCHES COALITION NEGOTIATIONS SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (SBU) Official consultations on the formation of a new Serbian government began on January 29. Ironically, the election returns proved most disappointing for the three most likely partners in Serbia's next government--the DS, DSS, and G17--while the Radicals, Socialists, and LDP are generally satisfied with the outcome and content to sit in opposition. DS officials warn that the parity in parliamentary strength between DS on the one hand and DSS and G17 Plus on the other provides no easy formula to form a government, especially as all three will need to come to agreement to secure a mathematical parliamentary majority. Tadic has reassured DS officials that he will not make undue concessions to Kostunica in the coalition talks as he has done before. PM Kostunica has given little hint to his advisers about his negotiating strategy for the coalition talks, but he is expected to wait patiently for Tadic and the DS to show their cards and to try to secure the post of Prime Minister. G17 Plus chairman Mladjan Dinkic looks to be the kingmaker. Kostunica's advisers privately, and SRS leaders publicly, have categorically ruled out the possibility of a DSS-SRS coalition. End Summary. FINAL SEAT TALLY -------------- ¶2. (SBU) President Boris Tadic launched official consultations on the formation of a new Serbian government on January 29 with meetings with SRS and his fellow DS officials, which will be followed by meetings in the ensuing two days with DSS, SPS, LDP, and minority party leaders. With the Republican Election Commission's certification last week of the official election results, the clock has started ticking on the holding of the constitutive session of the new parliament, which must be scheduled no later than 24 February. The parliament's opening session will then trigger a 90-day deadline for the formation of a new government. The following is the official seat distribution for the incoming parliament, which is composed of a total of 250 deputy seats: SRS 81 SVM (Hungarian) 3 DS 64 LZS (Bosniak) 2 DSS-NS 47 Presevo Albanians 1 G17 Plus 19 Union of Roma 1 SPS 16 Roma Party 1 LDP+ 15 RADICALS: RIGHT WHERE THEY WANT TO BE -------------- ¶3. (SBU) Post sources indicate that Serbian Radical Party (SRS) officials are more than satisfied with the election outcome. The party not only was by far the highest vote- getter, but also gained over 100,000 new supporters and, perhaps most importantly, handily won the city of Belgrade, unseating the Democratic Party (DS) as the most popular party in Serbia's capital. The SRS's decisive showings in both Belgrade and Novi Sad, Serbia's second biggest city, give party officials reason for confidence as they look ahead to local elections later this year. ¶4. (SBU) SRS acting leader Tomislav Nikolic publicly has already made clear that the party has no chance to form a government because it "has no coalition partner." This statement reportedly reflects the party's intent to stay safely on the political sidelines and allow DS and DSS to shoulder responsibility for the Kosovo status outcome and the hunt for Mladic. The Radicals appear to be counting on a DS-DSS coalition to flounder over Kosovo and the two parties' longstanding animosities, and thereby increase the chances that new parliament elections will be scheduled and that Nikolic or even popular Novi Sad mayor Maja Gojkovic could defeat Tadic in presidential elections later this year. DISCONTENT AMONG DS OFFICIALS -------------- ¶5. (SBU) In contrast, the Democratic Party leadership is quite disappointed with the election returns, even though the party almost doubled the size of its electorate from the 2003 parliamentary elections. Party officials are particularly demoralized by their defeat in their longstanding stronghold of Belgrade, perhaps most dramatically demonstrated by the post-election resignation of close Tadic adviser Dragan Djilas as chairman of the DS Belgrade Committee. DS Vice-President Dragan Sutanovac told Poloffs that he and other party leaders were counting on winning over a million votes in the elections, which would have given the DS a decisive advantage over the DSS and the virtually indisputable right to head a DS-DSS government. Instead, the parity in parliamentary strength between DS on the one hand and DSS and G17 Plus on the other provides no BELGRADE 00000132 002 OF 003 easy formula to form a government, according to Sutanovac. In fact, he warned that Serbia now is closer to repeat elections than it is to a new governing coalition. ¶6. (SBU) Sutanovac (protect) blames in large part the DS's undue concessions to Kostunica before and after October's constitutional referendum for their failure to achieve their electoral potential, and said that Tadic reassured him and other members of the DS presidency that he will not make the same mistake again. Sutanovac expressed concern that DS voters will punish them severely if they accept Kostunica as prime minister after the DS beat out the DSS by a wide margin, especially if Kostunica then proceeds to steer a DSS-DS government in the same direction as his previous government. As a result, Sutanovac said that the DS would not be very compromising in negotiations, including on the joint goals, policies, and principles of the new government. ¶7. (SBU) Sutanovac expected the DSS to deliver its platform for the future government's policy on Kosovo some time this week, and the DS would reject the platform if it approximated the Radical Party's approach, such as a call to suspend relations with any country that recognizes Kosovo's independence. For its part, the DS plans to drive a very hard bargain on the coalition's commitment to arresting and extraditing Mladic and also on the control of ministries like the Interior Ministry that will be decisive in fulfilling the DS's election promises of signing an SAA, getting Serbia on the EU's White Schengen List, and earning EU candidacy status by 2008. (Note: Sutanovac is the most likely DS candidate for the post of Interior Minister. End note.) Sutanovac hastened to add, however, that the DS is still undecided about their strategy and bottom lines for coalition negotiations. DSS FOCUSED ON SECURING PM POST FOR KOSTUNICA -------------- ¶8. (SBU) Officials of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) appear equally nonplussed. The DSS and its coalition partners together will have 24 fewer deputy seats than they had in the last parliament, and DSS itself will go from 53 to 33 seats. A member of the prime minister's cabinet told Poloffs that the DSS leadership had expected to receive at least 20 percent of the vote, rather than the under 17 percent support the party actually gained on election day, and some officials had even deluded themselves into believing the party would garner 25 percent and outpace the DS. ¶9. (SBU) The prime minister's aide said that neither Kostunica nor his chief of staff Aca Nikitovic has provided other party officials any guidance or even clues about what strategy or goals to pursue in coalition negotiations. He said that he had never seen Kostunica project this much uncertainty about what course of action to take in all of the time that he had known him. The adviser expected Kostunica to wait patiently for Tadic and the DS to show their cards before making any serious moves in the coalition talks. Nonetheless, he made clear that Kostunica remains focused on retaining the prime ministership and would also like to install a DSS official as foreign minister (reportedly longtime Kostunica protege and current Science and Environment Minister Aleksandar Popovic),while everything else, including the Interior and Justice Minister posts that many assume are coveted by DSS, is negotiable. Kostunica, however, does not desire to keep the premier post at all costs; two different officials in Kostunica's cabinet have categorically ruled out to us the possibility of DSS participating in a coalition with the SRS. G17: THE KINGMAKER WAITING IN THE WINGS -------------- ¶10. (SBU) G17 Plus Chairman Mladjan Dinkic told Ambassador Polt that he also was disappointed with his party's election returns. (Note: G17 won just under 7 percent, after polling from the party's high-powered US consultant Greenberg Research had indicated the party could gain as much as 12 percent. End note.) The party after the elections has played it coy, asserting that it is up to Tadic and Kostunica to find a workable solution for the government, even though most observers, including Dinkic's deputy Ivana Dulic-Markovic, assume that Kostunica and Dinkic have an understanding to support each other in coalition talks. Dinkic hinted at this with the Ambassador, stating that the DS deserved more positions in the government as the top vote-getter from the "democratic bloc," but that Kostunica would not accept a DS official at the helm of both the government and the Presidency. ¶11. (SBU) In addition, before the elections, Dinkic BELGRADE 00000132 003 OF 003 categorically stated that he would not participate in any government headed by his rival Bozidar Djelic, the DS's PM- candidate, further underscoring the dilemma Tadic faces as president deciding to whom he should give the mandate to form a government. In any event, G17 Plus officials have already shown that they will not underestimate their bargaining leverage, announcing publicly that Dinkic should be reappointed finance minister and that the party should also be offered a deputy prime minister position responsible for equitable regional development. LDP AND SPS PREPARE FOR OPPOSITION -------------- ¶12. (SBU) The lists that crossed the 5 percent election census with only a little room to spare--the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) coalition and the Socialists--do not figure in most observers' calculations for a governing coalition. DSS has ruled out participating in a government with LDP (and vice-versa) because of their irreconcilable stances on Kosovo and other issues, and both DS and G17 Plus have made clear that the SPS is an unacceptable coalition partner. LDP officials, in fact, have told Poloffs that they would prefer to sit in opposition, where they expect to capitalize on DS voter disenchantment with the party's cooperation with Kostunica in local and Vojvodina provincial elections later this year and in the next parliamentary elections. Nonetheless, LDP leader Ceda Jovanovic reassured the Ambassador that he would support Tadic and the DS in its pursuit of reformist goals, but would sharply criticize and counter any deviation from Serbia's Euro-Atlantic vocation, such as a completely rejectionist approach to Kosovo's independence or a timid approach to the arrest of war criminals. COMMENT -------------- ¶13. (SBU) Ironically, the election results proved most disappointing for the three most likely partners in Serbia's next government, while the Radicals, Socialists, and LDP are generally satisfied with the outcome and content to sit in opposition. In a normal situation, the common disappointment of DS, DSS, and G17 Plus would provide ripe conditions for an early compromise on a governing coalition. However, inside the DS, there is considerable pressure on Tadic to exact a high price for any kind of cohabitation with the DSS to avoid subsequent punishment from its voters. As a result, Tadic may give a first crack at forming a government to a DS official (most probably Djelic, his PM-candidate during the campaign). Kostunica will sit and wait as usual, and may be counting on support from Dinkic to secure his coveted position as prime minister. POLT