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Milosevic, jailed war crimes suspect win parliament seats in Serbia election (Dusan Stojanovic, Canadian Press, 30/12/03)

Jailed former president Slobodan Milosevic and another UN war crimes suspect won seats in Serbia's parliament as an extreme nationalist party swept weekend elections, according to results released Monday.

Vojislav Seselj's Serbian Radical party, which supported Milosevic's Balkan war campaigns in the 1990s, won 81 seats in Sunday's ballot for the 250-seat parliament - far more than the pro-Western groups that toppled Milosevic three years ago, the state electoral commission said.

Milosevic of the Serbian Socialist party and Seselj are jailed by the UN tribunal at The Hague on atrocity charges stemming from the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

They topped their parties' lists in a parliamentary vote considered crucial for the still-volatile Balkans, meaning they each have a right to a seat. Milosevic's Socialists won 22 seats.

Milosevic and Seselj can't attend parliamentary sessions, but their parties can still decide to award them seats when the new parliament convenes in January.

"It would be symbolic for Milosevic to get a seat in the parliament," said his party deputy, Ivica Dacic. "We'll talk to Milosevic about it, and we'll see if he wants it." [...]

In Washington, U.S. officials commended Serbia for holding free and fair elections.

"We welcome Sunday's orderly elections in Serbia and commend the Serbian people for their participation in the democratic process," State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said in a statement.

The European Union appealed for Serbia's pro-democratic parties to unite behind a new reformist government in response to the big gains by extreme nationalists.

"I appeal to all democratic forces to work together to ensure that a new government based on a clear and strong European reform agenda can be formed rapidly," said Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief.

Just a few years ago, Milosevic was a genocidal butcher and international outlaw the world went to war to remove in the name of human rights. Now he is the people’s choice. Europe’s response is to mumble concerned Eurospeak and Washington seems positively sunny about it all. Shouldn't somebody be threatening to resume the bombing?

This is the result of the farcical system of trying war criminals internationally. Four years later, this tyrant has the Court tied up in political and procedural knots and the quite ridiculous Carla del Ponte has managed to enrage Serbs with every clumsy new indictment. War criminals should be dealt with summarily and swiftly, and Milosevic should be with us no longer.

This is a huge betrayal of Serbian democrats, who are now vulnerable to the charge of being anti-Serb and unable to stand up to arrogant foreigners. Democracy’s greatest challenge in any virgin territory is to convince the masses it can be efficient, just and strong. Totalitarians of whatever stripe (who know very well how to make people feel proud) will fill the vacuum quickly if the general population gets the idea democrats are feckless or have concealed loyalties.

Meanwhile, in Baghdad...