Serbia

Voting on whether or not to join the EU

Article published on the 2008-05-11 Latest update 2008-05-11 14:00 TU

President Boris Tadic (left) and Radical party leader Tomislav Nikolic
(Photos: Reuters)

Serbs are voting in snap general elections this Sunday to chose between parties that either want to enter or rebuff the European Union. President Boris Tadic heads a pro-European alliance which is neck-and-neck with the nationalist Serbian Radical Party that wants to end Serbia's integration with the EU unless it backs off of recognising Kosovo's recent move to independence.

Turnout was high when polls opened at 9 AM, said Zoran Lučić, executive director of the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy, a local election observation group in Belgrade. By the early afternoon, it had levelled out to average levels of about 39 percent.

More than 6.7 million Serbs are registered to vote, including about 115,000 in Kosovo, the Serbian province that declared independence earlier this year, on 17 February.

Polling stations are set up in Kosovo, despite opposition from the United Nations and from Kosovo Albanians. Lučić said that there are no reports of tension there.

Voters will elect 250 members of parliament and local councillors. The two main choices are the Radical Party which says it will end Serbia's integration into the EU if Kosovo remains independent, and President Tadic's coalition which opposes independence for Kosovo, but not at the expense of EU integration.

All politicians are promising to raise living standards, something that Lučić says is even more important to people than Kosovo and joining the EU. "The main issue for the electorate of Serbia is not Kosovo it is not European Union," he said.

However, he concedes they are related: "If we are going to get into the European Union, there is the possibility that there are going to be some investments which means we are going to have jobs, and the economy is going to improve. So in that context, it is about the European Union."

Either party will have to form a coalition with at least one other party to have a majority in Parliament.

Polls close at 8 PM local time. The electoral commission is set to give final results on 15 May.