Serbia elected its parliament and totally contrary to the predictions it was a great day for the pro European party of Tadic. The nationalists who were the favorites lost votes in comparision to the last time.

While this clearly strengthens the pro European camp, the coalition building still leaves everything open. What do you think, how will the situation develop?

What you are quoting are preliminary results after counting 29% of all votes. I will wait for final results, and even then, it doesn't mean Tadic will form new government. In Slovakia, Meciar won twice, without forming a government since everybody ignored him.

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No loyalty towards the EU.

In Russia is freedom of speech. In America is also freedom after speech. -- Yakov Smirnoff

I thought that the votes of alread 95% of all election locations have been counted. The result so far is the following:

38,75% SD
29,22% SRS
11,24% DSS
7,57% SPS
5,30% LPD

It seems pretty certain now that the LPD makes it into the Parliament, which may prove important.

So it pretty much looks like the nationalist parties won't be able to totally exclude the pro Europeans from government. I would guess both sides have to find some compromise in the middle.

Results after counting 98% of votes are virtually the same as you presented, therefore we can consider them final.

Nikolič & Kostunica won't cooperate with Tadic. Ivica Dačič, the leader of SPS announced coalition talks with Kostunica.

If you count votes of these 3 parties, they have more than SD+LPD. Although quite a lot of Serbs seem to be willing to sacrifice Kosovo for EU entry, nationalists still have significant influence and will slow them down considerably or turn on the path towards Russia.

Even if Tadics party managed to somehow miraculously create a government, EU membership of Serbia is not realistic until 2020. Serbia, Albania will be probably the last Balkan countries to join the EU.

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No loyalty towards the EU.

In Russia is freedom of speech. In America is also freedom after speech. -- Yakov Smirnoff

No doubt, the Serbian society is deeply divided over this issue. Perhaps the reason why I am glad about the result is because my expectations were already the worst. Fact is that the pro European camp is indeed healthy and alive and improved its situation in comparision to the nationalists. That was not predicted and is therefore a very nice surprise in my eyes.

Of course, one should not overestimate the consequences. I dont presume that it will be easy now, or that the nationalists don't have a broad support anymore, but I am happy to see that it will be hard for them to ignore the pro Europeans. Maybe this will end up in a deadlock, I hope it doesn't but we will see.
If a renewed election will do the nationalists any favor or just confirm the deadlock is beyond my knowledge.

Yes a potential EU admission of Serbia is if at all way ahead in the future, but I think its already a good progress if both sides could manage to live side by side in good cooperation.

I will just add a link to website showing image of seat gains for each party:

Serben rücken Richtung Europa « DiePresse.com

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No loyalty towards the EU.

In Russia is freedom of speech. In America is also freedom after speech. -- Yakov Smirnoff

I guess it must have been really hard to shoot this picture, but it looks quite cool, even if its just an illusion.



PS:
Jaro, you read quite some Austrian press as it seems. Yes, that reminds of the potential benefits of knowing more foreign languages than English only. If I would not be so lazy to learn more languages...

quite against the odds of the doomsday thinkers, serbia is definetily not heading towards an isolated position in europe.

I discovered that my German deteriorated quite a lot since I left university, and to stop it I started reading some German/Austrian newspapers and improving my vocabulary. It would be a pitty since I spent like 10 years learning German. I'm not very fluent (but I can watch German TV, or read newspapers), because they only taught us grammar, not to discuss random topics. My English is better even though I spent less time learning it.
I like Die Presse because it also reports about events in eastern europe unlike other German language newspapers.

I wish Serbia joins the EU one day, but Serbs must give up their blind nationalism. I will always argument against it, since it had such catastrophic effects in central/eastern europe. I'm fine if somebody is a patriot - proud of achievements of his country, but unlike nationalists - not at the expense of others. I think Serbia just needs replacement of current generation just like the rest of eastern europe (where the current generation is incompetent in business), and that the next generation will be more pro EU and less nationalist.

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No loyalty towards the EU.

In Russia is freedom of speech. In America is also freedom after speech. -- Yakov Smirnoff

This definitely is a great news. I am so proud of the Serbians' majority, of the direction their country is taking because of their votes. It is good news for both Serbia and its similar neighbours. Joining the EU is just some steps ahead now. I think this vote shows that is what most Serbians want. The EU should now make a similar step towards integrating Serbia. Way to go!

EDIT: May I add a feeling of my own, hoping it will not infuriate others, I would say thanks to the USA for helping us build a democratic Europe, and praises to Russia for letting Europeans be what they are... just Europeans.

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"History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake" - Ulysses, James Joyce.