Serb MPs trade insults as crisis worsens

By Ellie Tzortzi

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbian liberals and ultranationalists traded insults in parliament on Monday as the country groped for a way out of its worst political crisis since reformist premier Zoran Djindjic was assassinated in 2003.

Hopes a pro-Western coalition would eventually emerge from the inconclusive election of January 21 crashed at the weekend, when Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and President Boris Tadic blamed each other for failing to cut a power-sharing deal.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he was trying to mediate by telephone, but with little success. A new election must be held if no government emerges by May 14.

Monday's parliamentary session to elect a speaker, and perhaps flush out support in the 250-seat assembly for a working majority, degenerated into a slanging match over the candidacy of ultranationalist Radical party chief Tomislav Nikolic.

Insults included 'liar', 'bandit', and 'pawn of the West'.

Tadic's party said Serbia needed a new government to restore its frozen EU membership hopes. Choosing Nikolic as speaker would simply be a return to the wasted years of the late autocrat Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s, it said.

Kostunica's party said backing Nikolic was "the only logical thing" to do because the Radicals were Serbia's strongest party, and his election did "not rule out either forming a new parliamentary majority or holding new elections".

The Radicals are heirs to the nationalist mantle of Milosevic, who led Serbia into four wars in the 1990s. They are hostile to the EU and NATO membership goals Tadic espouses.