Word: serbians
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Vojislav Seselj is not a subtle man. During the Bosnian war, the veteran Serbian politician threatened to level the Croatian capital, Zagreb, with a nuclear bomb. Paramilitary units under his leadership did not carve out enemies' eyes with pocket knives, he once told a reporter, they used rusty spoons. He's even accused ex-President Slobodan Milosevic of being too tolerant of minorities. That resumé might be a liability in some parts of the world, but not in Serbia, where the leader of the Serbian Radical Party, 48, is expected to get 30% of the vote in presidential elections...
...defining feature of the Serbian political scene and of yesterday’s elections is the rivalry between reformist and traditionalist forces. The candidate of the reformist stream is Miroljub Labus, an economics expert who had secured Yugoslavia’s membership in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The main reformist force in the country and propagator of reforms is the Serbian government led by Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who recently gave a much-praised speech at the Kennedy School of Government. The other major candidate is Vojislav Kostunica, president of Serbia and Montenegro, a traditionalist advocating...
First, Serbia should vote reformist because this political option in the Serbian politics is future-oriented and has a vision—to bring Serbia back to the family of European nations and to do it as fast as possible. In his address at Harvard, Djindjic compared the image of reformist Serbia to that of a bicycle—it is only stable when it is moving and if you look ahead while you ride...
Ivana Tasic-Nikolic ’04 is a government concentrator in Cabot House. She is president of the Harvard Serbian Society...
However, loved or respected, what will ultimately decide the fate of Serbian reforms are to a large extent which politicians get power. Serbia has indeed passed the Rubicon of democracy, but the current elections will to a large extent determine its pace. Will Serbia be an example of less successful transitions and stay in the East-West limbo of the past, outside of the major European streams for quite some time yet; or will it self-confidently get to work and catch up with the rest of Europe...