Ahead of the 11th May Serbian parliamentary elections the vote is being lauded as an effective poll between two options. The first, integration with Europe, offers better standards of living and, most importantly for many Serbs, higher wages either inside their own country or in Western markets. The alternative is isolationism, putting up a huge fence around Serbia (minus Kosovo) and sticking two fingers up at progress. Early polls suggest that it will be the ultra-nationalists of war-criminal Vojislav Seselj’s Radical Party who poll the most votes, but unlikely to win an outright majority (the most recent poll placed them on 36.5%) they could be bettered in a coalition were formed by President Boris Tadic’s Democratic Party and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica’s Democratic Party of Serbia (standing on 33.5% and 12.5% of the electorate respectively).

Despite the similar names held by the parties of Tadic and Kostunica, a large gap has opened up between them, which itself lead to the need for the election as their coalition fell apart. In Serbia, being “pro-western” is all very relative. Tadic’s Democratic Party is the one which promotes integration with Europe, but in comparison with pro-European parties in Western Europe, Tadic’s Europhile credentials are rather thin. Kostunica on the other hand is the man who can be seen as having betrayed the 5th October Revolution which removed Slobodan Milosevic from power. For those of us who had not closely followed Kostunica’s career during the Milosevic years, we were swayed by a sentimental belief in democratic principles, believing him to be made from the same mould as the Buddhist monks of Burma or Morgan Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe. We were misguided. Whilst Kostunica has not lead Serbia into any more disastrous wars, he has nevertheless continued Milosevic’s rabble-raising practise of cheap-nationalism. This is the type of nationalism which one can get by waving a flag, spewing forth empty rhetoric and blaming the rest of the world for your country’s problems, rather than a sincere nationalism that looks to make the difficult decisions necessary to better people’s lives in the long term, even if that may make you look like the bad-guy at that point in time. In a country that has suffered so many problems and is so politically unstable it is understandable, though not forgivable, for a clever man like Kostunica to take the easy path, after all, come his retirement he will no doubt have more than enough money to live comfortably. Many other Serbs will not.

The difficult decision which needs to be made is letting go of Kosovo. Despite his faults, Tadic is at least the best hope which Serbia has. His men have portrayed the election as a choice either for or against Europe, but it would be interesting to see how the results would change were this instead depicted as a vote for or against continuing the Kosovo charade. Watching thousands of people stand outside the Skupstina, listening to Kostunica and other public figures speak about how Kosovo is the heart of Serbia and will always be part of Serbia was pitiful. When there is nothing to lose these people will be happy to join the masses, just as many of them did the same when they ousted Milosevic. It should be maybe asked though how many would continue to care about Kosovo (a region that the vast majority of Belgraders have no interest in visiting, let alone living in even were it to be part of Serbia) if they thought that it could be exchanged for a better life. Obviously this is hypothetical and infeasible in practise, but if offered the opportunity to work and study abroad with ease, take home pay cheques on a par with Slovenes and have a stable functioning democracy, the majority of people in Serbia would happily demand that their government recognise Kosovo’s independence immediately. The irony here though is that all of that is on offer. The EU is so keen to hush-up and talk that Serbia is being victimised that it is showing real flexibility on the issue of Serbian war criminals still at large that Serbia could, were it to cooperate and show a little humility, become a fully fledged member within a few short years.

This election will not augment a great deal of change in Serbia though. It is likely that we will see a continuation of the clanking system that has brought the country to its current pedestrian speed of development. If the culture of victimhood could be despatched with then Belgrade could become a locomotive. For the moment, if the woeful candidates who will assume office following 11th May are anything to go by, announcements by the government that the country will become a fully fledged EU member within four years seem patently ridiculous.