>>So... who are their new guys? I haven't heard of any.
>
>His name is Tomislav Nikolic. According to the Times article he seems to think the only problem with Milosevic was he stopped before he was finished. I think he meant all the parts of Yugoslavia Milosevic lost in unsuccessful wars, is that right?
He's not new at all. The reporters were sleeping.
He's Šešelj's man #2, and since Šešelj is in The Hague (actually, in the prison in Scheveningen), he's the candidate. Toma Nikolić, aka Toma Grobar (undertaker), because he was once the CEO of the parks and cemeteries public enterprise in his home town. They are the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), as much as fascist can one get without actually crossing the line. The literacy level of their members is actually below the national average ;). You can pretty much call them the redneck party, and they never before managed to get this high - they keep scoring relatively well just because they disciplined their voters, who regularly show up, while the rest are pretty much apathetic and PO'd. And this creates success which brings in more people - even though their record in the cities where they rule is dismal/abysmal/worse. Just today I found a story about a landfill where the plastic bags and other trash are burning for a year now, but the local authorities, being SRS, do nothing. Too busy lining their pockets.
They keep being individually the strongest party, but then always lose in the end when the others make a deal and round up against them. Twice in a row it happened that Boris Tadić (the prez) was elected on "vote for me, or you can only blame yourself when you get Toma".
It seems that they may have a chance this time. The pro-western parties have nothing to show. Serbia is still nowhere, and it just got amputated again without as much as an advanced warning or appology or anything. Not too many people would fight for Kosovo, not even as many as those who would go live there - it's been lost decades ago, maybe centuries ago. This loss of the heartland is the result of Ottoman demographic game (Albanians were somewhat easier to persuade to lose their Christianity and convert to Islam, so they got the privileges and were given land there), the rest is just a series of clumsy attempts to rectify that - one worse than the others. That's history, and it may well go as is. But the manner how it was given independence, without proper consideration and, stool, principles - now it gives an opening to any separatist movement anywhere, and they're already taking the cue, but that too is a separate story - this manner is pushing an innumerable number of people towards the radicals. The democratic parties have tried for eight years to come to an agreement with EU and NATO and who not, to have this resolved and to be able to show the people that progress was made, and that all this reshaping of the country in the image of any other EU country was towards an achievable goal, towards some better life. Now, after this kick in the jaw, even my wife says she'd vote radicals if she were there. Can't be worse than already is, and these guys may actually just speed up whatever inevitable outcome is looming on the horizon - and may force the country to turn to itself, to start building on its own, without waiting for buyers and investors, for they will not come. Of course, they will bring in the Russian capital, which somehow has money that stinks and isn't allowed to buy what it wants elsewhere - OK, buy Serbia then, screw the EU.
We'll see, elections are this weekend. I can vote at the embassy, and I'd vote if they finally invented absentee ballots - but I just don't feel like driving to DC for that, 'cause it's hopeless. The EU will always have one or two more demands, there will always be a member or two who will believe their own propaganda (which may become true meanwhile - just like any other cultural colony, people begin to believe the image projected about them, and then to actually live it), can't win them, better lose them completely. Find other friends, or become EU's stone in the kidney. Anything, just stop this forever-in-waiting.
IOW, if the Radicals win, I'll just be irritated, but won't be surprised.
