Word: serbian
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...whole nation seemed to roar back. With that greeting, the 56-year-old former law professor did more than herald the regime's demise. He also won for the moment the hearts of the Serbian people who had given him their votes two weeks earlier. Kostunica's ability to unite the fractious Serbian opposition and defeat Slobodan Milosevic at the polls was an astonishing political feat, but even his allies wondered whether the taciturn scholar had it in him to lead a popular revolt. He did. Kostunica didn't want events to be settled in Belgrade's streets, but once...
Imagine the Serbian leader's surprise when the opposition didn't just fold. He had counted on its usual spineless disunity. He didn't realize the uncharismatic Kostunica was the critical ingredient that let Serbs imagine an alternative future. He didn't know how bitterly Serbs blamed him for their blighted lives. The accumulated woes of $45-a-month salaries or no employment at all, four lost wars and untold thousands of lost Yugoslav lives, the NATO bombing that dashed an impoverished economy into visible ruins, the bitter years of sanctions and international opprobrium. Domestic repression and self-serving propaganda...
...determination to remain close to the people was disarming. "You are staying here with me," he told them Thursday night. "I'm staying here with you." On Friday night Kostunica appeared on Serbian state television and took calls from viewers, Larry King-style. He pledged that he would not move to the presidential residence, known as the White Palace, preferring to stay in his cramped Belgrade apartment. He said last week he will not serve his whole five-year term but plans to call for new parliamentary and presidential elections in 18 months, after which he will step aside...
...comes the hard part. The Serbian economy is a shambles, and even the lifting of sanctions by the U.S. and the European Union won't help it recover anytime soon. An encouraging sign is Kostunica's free-market economic platform, drafted by a group of progressive, West-leaning economists. To push through reforms, Kostunica will rely heavily on the Democratic Opposition of Serbia, a conglomerate of 18 parties whose leaders disagree about almost everything. To maintain his majority in the federal parliament, he will have to work with former Milosevic supporters from Montenegro's Socialist People's Party, while protecting...
...left Kostunica forced to contend with the fact that, under that constitution, Milosevic still enjoys substantial political power by virtue of his dominant position in both the federal parliament and the in the all-important government of Serbia. Not only that, but plans to hold elections for the Serbian parliament in December may further narrow his own political base. Kostunica is the leader of a small party that has been somewhat peripheral among opposition groups in recent years, and the 15 parties in the coalition he led - which was based not on a policy consensus but simply on the need...