Going To Extremes?

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Small wonder that only 20% of Serbs in a recent poll said their country was headed in the right direction. Foreign debt is nearing $13 billion, compared to a GDP of around $10 billion. Industrial production continues to fall. Unemployment is at 35%. Serbs have tried and failed three times to elect a President (not enough people bothered to turn out) while the current coalition government's ceaseless infighting has "destroyed people's faith in the reform process," says one senior diplomat.

All this is proving fertile ground for Tomislav Nikolic, the grim-faced Serbian Radical Party campaigner who is standing in for Vojislav Seselj while the boss prepares his defense. A former cemetery manager, Nikolic is traveling the country with a list of fiery complaints about Serbia's oppressors, from "soulless journalists" trying to destroy his party, to NATO, the Hague and, worst of all, the "servants of the West" in Serbia's current government. To set Serbia on the right path, he wants to sever ties with Croatia, return troops to Kosovo, review the "illegal" privatizations that have taken place over the past three years, and end foolish dreams of a Western alliance.

"We could have the son of Javier Solana as Prime Minister and they still would not let us in the E.U. for 10 years! Half of us will be dead by then!" he told supporters this month in the northern border town of Subotica. "We don't owe anything to anyone!"

Kostunica's message is not quite as militant, but it's in the same vein. He complains bitterly about the "anti-Serb" Hague Tribunal and, in an interview with Time, suggested he had no intention of sending four indictees now in Serbia for trial there. "The Hague looks like a game to me. I will have these cases treated by our courts." He talks of Serbia's foreign interests lying not only in Washington and Brussels but also in Moscow, Beijing and with "our old ties" in the so-called nonaligned countries, a bloc co-founded in the 1960s by former Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito. Like the Radicals, Kostunica has nothing but scorn for the country's leaders, whom he accuses of "destroying the institutions of state" and subverting the rule of law.

Kostunica has ruled out a coalition with the Radicals in any future government and claims he would not share power with the late Djindjic's Democratic Party either. Analysts say his most likely partner, depending on the results, would be "G17 Plus," a party founded by 17 economists that advocates Western-style market reforms.

Regardless of outcome, it will hardly be the first time that Serbia has weathered bad leaders. And while the new crop may be reactionary, they won't be marching Serbia back to war anytime soon, even though sometimes it can feel that way. On a chilly recent evening in downtown Belgrade, several dozen police in full riot gear fanned out to block a major thoroughfare. Passersby looked on in alarm, until it became apparent that it was a stunt, designed to publicize the opening of a new film about the violent 1996-97 anti-Milosevic riots. As for Milosevic and Seselj, Hague officials late last week banned both men from "using communication facilities provided by the Detention Unit" to spread their message home. No more virtual campaigning? Things ain't what they used to be.