Beograd, 21 May - A week after the May 11 parliamentary, provincial and local elections, Serbia still has no knowledge as to who will govern her in the time to come.

Apart from the indeed encouraging results of the election – a convicting majority of the Democratic Party (DS) and a serious downfall of the extreme rightist and xenophobic Serbian Radical Party’s (SRS) popularity, as well as a serious setback of [hitherto Prime Minister]  Koštunica’s Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) – Serbian politics has assumed a new quality politicians and the public at large at home and abroad will have to seriously count with: European Union and the country’s European future will continue to play a speedily increasing role in Serbia’s politics in spite of the sharp 50:50% split of the electorate on the matter: Koštunica’s fanaticism on Kosovo will be able to attract less and less support even if he should manage to stay in power. Even if the increased presence of the European idea is centered at the expected inflow of EU money to assist Serbia’s accelerated development rather than an opportunity to interiorize the value system dominant in European democracies, that process is bound to take momentum and become irreversible. This represents by far the most important feature of the post-election Serbia, and an opportunity serious politicians and other public servants should miss under no circumstances.

The election results showed that DS’s relative majority does not suffice for a coalition of European-minded parties - an unfortunate circumstance that can push the basically pro-European Democrats into a utilitarian alliance with (post)Milošević Socialists, which is certain to force them into painful programmatic concessions and unprincipled compromises.

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