VZCZCXRO1462
PP RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHDA RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHLN
RUEHLZ RUEHPOD RUEHROV RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHBW #0273/01 0811427
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P R 211427Z MAR 08
FM AMEMBASSY BELGRADE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0067
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHINGTON DC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
RUEHBW/AMEMBASSY BELGRADE 0114

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BELGRADE 000273 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KPAO PBTS PGOV PHUM PINR PREL KV SR
SUBJECT: SERBIA:  KOSTUNICA'S CAMPAIGN: ALL KOSOVO, ALL THE TIME 
 
REF: BELGRADE 1450 (2007) 
 
BELGRADE 00000273  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
SUMMARY 
 
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¶1.  (SBU) Prime Minister Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia 
will try to keep national attention on Kosovo, rather than 
European integration, as part of its electoral strategy for 
Serbia's May 11 elections.  The DSS campaign will seize on and 
prolong stories of unrest in Kosovo, such as the March 17 
clashes in Mitrovica, to drown out rivals' messages and portray 
them as unpatriotic and weak, while staying ahead of the 
Radicals on Kosovo to avoid being absorbed by the much larger, 
hard-line party.  End Summary. 
 
 
 
FRAMING THE DEBATE 
 
------------------ 
 
 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Prime Minister Kostunica clearly stated his reasons 
for calling for the DS-DSS government's dissolution was because 
he did not feel it was united on Kosovo.  His Democratic Party 
of Serbia (DSS) has continued with this message into the 
pre-election campaign, asserting that the struggle to oppose 
Kosovo independence is the country's top priority.  Conversely, 
Kostunica told the DSS executive board on March 18, the 
Democratic Party (DS) bloc is a coalition of "weak politics and 
big propaganda" that cannot deliver on its promise of EU 
integration.  Kostunica accused Tadic's coalition of "publicly 
saying that Kosovo is independent" and "turning away" from 
Kosovo.  Former DS Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic told the 
Ambassador on March 18 that the DSS has succeeded in "setting 
the political agenda" framing Kosovo as "injustice" despite 
Kosovo independence having been "clear" for five years. 
 
 
 
¶3. (SBU) Kostunica has repeated the argument that prompted the 
collapse of the DS-DSS governing coalition, that Serbia must not 
join the EU while the EU intends to deploy its mission to 
Kosovo.  The Prime Minister told DSS leaders that the party's 
top priority was "the struggle for Kosovo and Metohija and 
Serbia's integral territory," with EU membership secondary and 
even then only with Kosovo as a part of Serbia.  Leon Kojen, a 
former GOS Kosovo negotiator alongside Kosovo Minister Slobodan 
Samardzic (DSS), told poloff on March 20 that Kostunica had 
successfully made EU integration and Kosovo "two sides of the 
same coin," limiting the DS's ability to make a strong pro-EU 
argument during the campaign without being forced to discuss 
Kosovo. 
 
 
 
¶4. (SBU) Kostunica has dismissed the DS coalition "propaganda" 
that a DSS and/or Radical (SRS) victory would result in 
isolation.  Kostunica told Serbian daily Politika on March 17 
that the DS campaign was "equal to the worst kinds of propaganda 
carried out by totalitarian regimes."  Kostunica said "the time 
of sanctions towards Serbia is in the distant past which will 
never repeat itself" and any allusion to such isolation is an 
example of his opponents "attempting to introduce fear" into the 
electorate. 
 
 
 
¶5. (SBU) The DSS has seized on recent unrest in Mitrovica and 
the Presidential authorization to provide defense materiel to 
Kosovo as part of its electoral campaign.  Upon his return from 
Kosovo, Samardzic told daily Vecernje Novosti on March 20 that 
he had "strong evidence" including sniper bullets and 
photographs that "somebody wanted to create a conflict and a 
state of war in Kosovo" on March 17.  Samardzic joined other GOS 
officials in condemning UNMIK "brutality" and said its operation 
in Mitrovica was part of a campaign "to create a new Albanian 
state," and give Serbs "a violent lesson." In another sign of 
the importance the DSS attaches to Kosovo, Samardzic was 
unanimously elected to serve as one of seven DSS vice presidents 
at the party's March 19 meeting.  The six other positions were 
filled in October 2007 (reftel). 
 
 
 
POLLSTERS: "UDI WAS CPR" 
 
BELGRADE 00000273  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
 
------------------------ 
 
 
 
¶6. (SBU) Political observers believe that Kosovo is the only 
remaining DSS political issue, but the Radicals also gain as 
tensions increase.  Marko Blagojevic, a respected pollster with 
the Center for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID) told poloff 
on March 18 that Kosovo independence revitalized the DSS. 
"Kosovo's UDI gave CPR to a dead DSS heart," Blagojevic said, 
but perhaps only for the short-term.  The DSS risks "losing its 
identity" if in ultimately forms a coalition with the Radicals, 
he said. Srbobran Brankovic from the Medium Gallup International 
polling firm told poloff on March 19 that the DSS's "only topic" 
was Kosovo.  Although disturbances in Kosovo such as the March 
17 clashes in Mitrovica kept Kosovo the preeminent political 
issue in the pre-election campaign, Brankovic thought increasing 
tensions in Kosovo would more likely benefit Radicals than the 
DSS.  Srdjan Bogosavljevic of Strategic Marketing polling told 
poloff on March 18 that the DS-New Serbia (NS) coalition may get 
around 10% of the vote, possibly (again) in a kingmaker role. 
As with the other pollsters, he said Kosovo was the "only DSS 
issue" and said that if tension in Kosovo continued the DSS 
would do well in elections. 
 
 
 
IT'S NOT THE ECONOMY, STUPID 
 
---------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶7. (SBU) Kostunica realizes that the economy matters to voters, 
but he hopes he can keep the focus on Kosovo.  On March 19, he 
addressed the Foreign Investment Council (FIC), the main 
association of international businesses operating in Serbia. 
According to the press, the FIC director said a "stable business 
climate" was critical for foreign investors.  B92 News reported 
that Kostunica agreed; stressing the importance of foreign 
investment and economic development, but still tied the issue of 
foreign investment to Kosovo.  According to his statement, 
Kostunica told the business representatives that "an increase in 
foreign investments from all countries can only help [Serbia] 
protect [its] rights on the international level as guaranteed by 
the UN Charter." Similarly, in his March 17 Politika interview, 
Kostunica said that the GOS response to countries which 
recognized Kosovo has been "political and "does not affect 
economic ties." 
 
 
 
¶8. (SBU) Kojen (who worked closely with both Kostunica and 
Samardzic during Kosovo negotiations) told poloff on March 20 
that the Prime Minister focused solely on political matters and 
quickly tired of economic discussions, allowing the G17 and DS 
to manage such issues.  Kojen said this was part of the DS-DSS 
tacit agreement to let Kostunica run Kosovo policy while the 
DS/G17 were free to handle everything else.  Kojen assessed that 
once it was clear that Kosovo policy encompassed economic issues 
as well, such as business deals with Moscow, this agreement 
broke down and hastened the collapse of the coalition. 
 
 
 
COMMENT 
 
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¶9. (SBU) The DSS will make full use of their only remaining 
strategy: casting the election as the struggle for Kosovo 
between patriots (them) and traitors (the DS).  More delicately, 
they must stay in front of the Radicals to maintain the 
distinction that, unlike the Radicals, the DSS is able to 
represent a modern Serbia to the world and negotiate for EU 
integration once Kosovo is secured.  Unrest in Kosovo and uproar 
over U.S. military assistance to Kosovo help them make their 
case on Kosovo to the voters, but now two separate Serb 
manifestations (in Belgrade on February 21 and in Mitrovica on 
March 17) have spun dangerously out of control.  This chaos 
threatens to undermine the DSS claim that they can both keep 
Kosovo and lead a modern, stable Serbia.  The DSS is playing 
with fire.  End Comment. 
MUNTER