Ultra-nationalist Nikolic expected to win election
BANJSKA, Serbia – The plum brandy flowed freely at polling station No. 9 in Banjska, northern Kosovo, as Serbs voted for a new president.
History suggests Serbs in the breakaway Serbian province will turn out in their tens of thousands to vote for ultranationalist Radical candidate Tomislav Nikolic in Sunday’s election, a vote ignored by the 90-percent Albanian majority.
The election could decide Serbia’s future ties with the United States and European Union after Kosovo’s 2 million Albanians declare independence with Western backing, a move expected weeks after a likely second-round run-off on February 3.
Bosanka Prodanovic refused to reveal who she voted for, but she bristled at any idea of reconciliation with the West:
“I expect our next president to battle harder for Kosovo, and to stop the humiliation of the Serb people by the West,” she said at the polling station set up in a Banjska cafe.
From behind the bar, it was clear many of the 260 registered voters — who cast their ballots under a 2007 calendar of Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic — were circling No. 1 for Nikolic.
There were few posters for pro-Western incumbent Boris Tadic, although polls suggest he could win in the second round.
Opposite the main polling station in ethnically-divided Mitrovica, the owner of ‘Cafe-Bar Sale’ rigged a stereo speaker on his terrace and blasted the nationalist Radical anthem glorifying the Serb ‘Chetnik’ fighters of World War Two.
“Say no more,” said a photographer.
Serbia has had no formal control over Kosovo since 1999, when NATO bombing drove out Serb forces to halt their killing and ethnic cleansing of Albanians in a two-year war against separatist rebels led by new Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci.
Thaci travels to Brussels on January 23, where Albanians expect him to agree on a date for Kosovo’s parliament to declare independence, after Serb ally Russia blocked the territory’s secession at the United Nations Security Council.
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