Socialists and Democrats Will Rule Serbia

Chronicles Magazine July 03 2008 By Srdja Trifkovic The political situation in Serbia is both unprecedented and unexpected. No analyst had predicted, three or four months ago, that the election on May 11 would result in such impressive gains by the Democratic Party (Demokratska stranka, DS)—which won over 38 percent of the vote—and in a relative defeat for the Radicals (Srpska radikalna stranka, SRS), which polled 29 percent. The most surprising feature of Serbia's post-election scene in the formation of the new governing coalition, based on an alliance between the "pro-Western, reformist" Democrats and the Socialists (Socijalisticka partija Srbije, SPS), the party of the late President Slobodan Milosevic. For the past almost eight years since the fall of Milosevic, the Democrats and their allies have been demonizing the... [read full story]