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RR RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHDA RUEHDBU RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA
RUEHLN RUEHLZ RUEHROV RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHBW #0132/01 0291438
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 291438Z JAN 07
FM AMEMBASSY BELGRADE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0155
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BELGRADE 000132 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM SR
SUBJECT: SERBIA: TADIC LAUNCHES COALITION NEGOTIATIONS 
 
 
SUMMARY 
------- 
¶1.  (SBU) Official consultations on the formation of a new 
Serbian government began on January 29. Ironically, the 
election returns proved most disappointing for the three 
most likely partners in Serbia's next government--the DS, 
DSS, and G17--while the Radicals, Socialists, and LDP are 
generally satisfied with the outcome and content to sit in 
opposition.  DS officials warn that the parity in 
parliamentary strength between DS on the one hand and DSS 
and G17 Plus on the other provides no easy formula to form 
a government, especially as all three will need to come to 
agreement to secure a mathematical parliamentary majority. 
Tadic has reassured DS officials that he will not make 
undue concessions to Kostunica in the coalition talks as he 
has done before. PM Kostunica has given little hint to his 
advisers about his negotiating strategy for the coalition 
talks, but he is expected to wait patiently for Tadic and 
the DS to show their cards and to try to secure the post of 
Prime Minister. G17 Plus chairman Mladjan Dinkic looks to 
be the kingmaker.  Kostunica's advisers privately, and SRS 
leaders publicly, have categorically ruled out the 
possibility of a DSS-SRS coalition. End Summary. 
 
FINAL SEAT TALLY 
---------------- 
¶2.  (SBU) President Boris Tadic launched official 
consultations on the formation of a new Serbian government 
on January 29 with meetings with SRS and his fellow DS 
officials, which will be followed by meetings in the 
ensuing two days with DSS, SPS, LDP, and minority party 
leaders. With the Republican Election Commission's 
certification last week of the official election results, 
the clock has started ticking on the holding of the 
constitutive session of the new parliament, which must be 
scheduled no later than 24 February. The parliament's 
opening session will then trigger a 90-day deadline for the 
formation of a new government.  The following is the 
official seat distribution for the incoming parliament, 
which is composed of a total of 250 deputy seats: 
 
SRS                  81       SVM (Hungarian)       3 
DS                   64       LZS (Bosniak)         2 
DSS-NS               47       Presevo Albanians     1 
G17 Plus             19       Union of Roma         1 
SPS                  16       Roma Party            1 
LDP+                 15 
 
RADICALS: RIGHT WHERE THEY WANT TO BE 
------------------------------------- 
¶3.  (SBU) Post sources indicate that Serbian Radical Party 
(SRS) officials are more than satisfied with the election 
outcome. The party not only was by far the highest vote- 
getter, but also gained over 100,000 new supporters and, 
perhaps most importantly, handily won the city of Belgrade, 
unseating the Democratic Party (DS) as the most popular 
party in Serbia's capital. The SRS's decisive showings in 
both Belgrade and Novi Sad, Serbia's second biggest city, 
give party officials reason for confidence as they look 
ahead to local elections later this year. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) SRS acting leader Tomislav Nikolic publicly has 
already made clear that the party has no chance to form a 
government because it "has no coalition partner." This 
statement reportedly reflects the party's intent to stay 
safely on the political sidelines and allow DS and DSS to 
shoulder responsibility for the Kosovo status outcome and 
the hunt for Mladic. The Radicals appear to be counting on 
a DS-DSS coalition to flounder over Kosovo and the two 
parties' longstanding animosities, and thereby increase the 
chances that new parliament elections will be scheduled and 
that Nikolic or even popular Novi Sad mayor Maja Gojkovic 
could defeat Tadic in presidential elections later this 
year. 
 
DISCONTENT AMONG DS OFFICIALS 
----------------------------- 
¶5.  (SBU) In contrast, the Democratic Party leadership is 
quite disappointed with the election returns, even though 
the party almost doubled the size of its electorate from 
the 2003 parliamentary elections. Party officials are 
particularly demoralized by their defeat in their 
longstanding stronghold of Belgrade, perhaps most 
dramatically demonstrated by the post-election resignation 
of close Tadic adviser Dragan Djilas as chairman of the DS 
Belgrade Committee. DS Vice-President Dragan Sutanovac told 
Poloffs that he and other party leaders were counting on 
winning over a million votes in the elections, which would 
have given the DS a decisive advantage over the DSS and the 
virtually indisputable right to head a DS-DSS government. 
Instead, the parity in parliamentary strength between DS on 
the one hand and DSS and G17 Plus on the other provides no 
 
BELGRADE 00000132  002 OF 003 
 
 
easy formula to form a government, according to Sutanovac. 
In fact, he warned that Serbia now is closer to repeat 
elections than it is to a new governing coalition. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Sutanovac (protect) blames in large part the DS's 
undue concessions to Kostunica before and after October's 
constitutional referendum for their failure to achieve 
their electoral potential, and said that Tadic reassured 
him and other members of the DS presidency that he will not 
make the same mistake again. Sutanovac expressed concern 
that DS voters will punish them severely if they accept 
Kostunica as prime minister after the DS beat out the DSS 
by a wide margin, especially if Kostunica then proceeds to 
steer a DSS-DS government in the same direction as his 
previous government. As a result, Sutanovac said that the 
DS would not be very compromising in negotiations, 
including on the joint goals, policies, and principles of 
the new government. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Sutanovac expected the DSS to deliver its 
platform for the future government's policy on Kosovo some 
time this week, and the DS would reject the platform if it 
approximated the Radical Party's approach, such as a call 
to suspend relations with any country that recognizes 
Kosovo's independence. For its part, the DS plans to drive 
a very hard bargain on the coalition's commitment to 
arresting and extraditing Mladic and also on the control of 
ministries like the Interior Ministry that will be decisive 
in fulfilling the DS's election promises of signing an SAA, 
getting Serbia on the EU's White Schengen List, and earning 
EU candidacy status by 2008. (Note: Sutanovac is the most 
likely DS candidate for the post of Interior Minister. End 
note.) Sutanovac hastened to add, however, that the DS is 
still undecided about their strategy and bottom lines for 
coalition negotiations. 
 
DSS FOCUSED ON SECURING PM POST FOR KOSTUNICA 
--------------------------------------------- 
¶8.  (SBU) Officials of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) 
appear equally nonplussed. The DSS and its coalition 
partners together will have 24 fewer deputy seats than they 
had in the last parliament, and DSS itself will go from 53 
to 33 seats. A member of the prime minister's cabinet told 
Poloffs that the DSS leadership had expected to receive at 
least 20 percent of the vote, rather than the under 17 
percent support the party actually gained on election day, 
and some officials had even deluded themselves into 
believing the party would garner 25 percent and outpace the 
DS. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) The prime minister's aide said that neither 
Kostunica nor his chief of staff Aca Nikitovic has provided 
other party officials any guidance or even clues about what 
strategy or goals to pursue in coalition negotiations. He 
said that he had never seen Kostunica project this much 
uncertainty about what course of action to take in all of 
the time that he had known him. The adviser expected 
Kostunica to wait patiently for Tadic and the DS to show 
their cards before making any serious moves in the 
coalition talks. Nonetheless, he made clear that Kostunica 
remains focused on retaining the prime ministership and 
would also like to install a DSS official as foreign 
minister (reportedly longtime Kostunica protege and current 
Science and Environment Minister Aleksandar Popovic), while 
everything else, including the Interior and Justice 
Minister posts that many assume are coveted by DSS, is 
negotiable. Kostunica, however, does not desire to keep the 
premier post at all costs; two different officials in 
Kostunica's cabinet have categorically ruled out to us the 
possibility of DSS participating in a coalition with the 
SRS. 
 
G17: THE KINGMAKER WAITING IN THE WINGS 
--------------------------------------- 
¶10.  (SBU) G17 Plus Chairman Mladjan Dinkic told Ambassador 
Polt that he also was disappointed with his party's 
election returns. (Note: G17 won just under 7 percent, 
after polling from the party's high-powered US consultant 
Greenberg Research had indicated the party could gain as 
much as 12 percent. End note.) The party after the 
elections has played it coy, asserting that it is up to 
Tadic and Kostunica to find a workable solution for the 
government, even though most observers, including Dinkic's 
deputy Ivana Dulic-Markovic, assume that Kostunica and 
Dinkic have an understanding to support each other in 
coalition talks. Dinkic hinted at this with the Ambassador, 
stating that the DS deserved more positions in the 
government as the top vote-getter from the "democratic 
bloc," but that Kostunica would not accept a DS official at 
the helm of both the government and the Presidency. 
 
¶11.  (SBU) In addition, before the elections, Dinkic 
 
BELGRADE 00000132  003 OF 003 
 
 
categorically stated that he would not participate in any 
government headed by his rival Bozidar Djelic, the DS's PM- 
candidate, further underscoring the dilemma Tadic faces as 
president deciding to whom he should give the mandate to 
form a government. In any event, G17 Plus officials have 
already shown that they will not underestimate their 
bargaining leverage, announcing publicly that Dinkic should 
be reappointed finance minister and that the party should 
also be offered a deputy prime minister position 
responsible for equitable regional development. 
 
LDP AND SPS PREPARE FOR OPPOSITION 
---------------------------------- 
¶12.  (SBU) The lists that crossed the 5 percent election 
census with only a little room to spare--the Liberal 
Democratic Party (LDP) coalition and the Socialists--do not 
figure in most observers' calculations for a governing 
coalition. DSS has ruled out participating in a government 
with LDP (and vice-versa) because of their irreconcilable 
stances on Kosovo and other issues, and both DS and G17 
Plus have made clear that the SPS is an unacceptable 
coalition partner. LDP officials, in fact, have told 
Poloffs that they would prefer to sit in opposition, where 
they expect to capitalize on DS voter disenchantment with 
the party's cooperation with Kostunica in local and 
Vojvodina provincial elections later this year and in the 
next parliamentary elections. Nonetheless, LDP leader Ceda 
Jovanovic reassured the Ambassador that he would support 
Tadic and the DS in its pursuit of reformist goals, but 
would sharply criticize and counter any deviation from 
Serbia's Euro-Atlantic vocation, such as a completely 
rejectionist approach to Kosovo's independence or a timid 
approach to the arrest of war criminals. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
¶13.  (SBU) Ironically, the election results proved most 
disappointing for the three most likely partners in 
Serbia's next government, while the Radicals, Socialists, 
and LDP are generally satisfied with the outcome and 
content to sit in opposition. In a normal situation, the 
common disappointment of DS, DSS, and G17 Plus would 
provide ripe conditions for an early compromise on a 
governing coalition. However, inside the DS, there is 
considerable pressure on Tadic to exact a high price for 
any kind of cohabitation with the DSS to avoid subsequent 
punishment from its voters. As a result, Tadic may give a 
first crack at forming a government to a DS official (most 
probably Djelic, his PM-candidate during the campaign). 
Kostunica will sit and wait as usual, and may be counting 
on support from Dinkic to secure his coveted position as 
prime minister. 
 
POLT