MOSCOW. (Pyotr Iskenderov for RIA Novosti) - Serbia's leaders considered the October 28-29 constitutional referendum to be very important and wanted to hold it as quickly as possible.
Consequently, there was no preliminary extensive discussion of the draft Serbian constitution. The decision to hold a two-day referendum was motivated by the political inertness of Serbian society that has repeatedly thwarted presidential elections in the last few years.
At 8 p.m., when the elections were scheduled to end, the Central Election Commission decided to allow people inside polling stations and those waiting outside to cast their votes.
The draft constitution was supported by 51.5% of voters, which gives Serbian leaders every reason to talk about a popular confidence vote and to use the plebiscite's results as effectively as possible.
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has repeatedly said that the new constitution will enable the country to join the European Union. Indeed, its Article 1 proclaims Serbia to be a state based on European values.
The draft constitution abolishes the death penalty, declares a ban on human cloning and contains other provisions matching EU standards. But the problem is that Serbia-EU cooperation may be jeopardized in the foreseeable future because the Brussels-backed Hague Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia wants to try former Bosnian Serb leader, General Radko Mladic, who is allegedly concealed by Serbian authorities.
Many EU members want to grant independence to Kosovo by persuading Belgrade to allow that territory to secede in exchange for Serbia's subsequent accession to the EU. The approval of the new Serbian constitution will hardly influence their position.
Official Belgrade wanted to have the constitution passed as soon as possible because its preamble proclaims Kosovo as part of Serbia. The bill's authors deliberately took their chances because an abortive referendum would have proved that most voters do not support a continued struggle for Kosovo. Belgrade would have lost a highly important trump card at talks on Kosovo's status and during discussions at the UN Security Council.
As this did not happen, Belgrade can now say that the constitutional referendum also dealt with the issue of retaining Kosovo as part of Serbia. Moreover, it can say that any attempts to make Kosovo independent infringe on the will of a sovereign nation, expressed by democratic means.
The constitutional referendum has confirmed the ruling Serbian coalition's position on Kosovo and paves the way for early parliamentary elections. Objectively speaking, the ruling coalition wants to hold such elections before Kosovo's status has been finalized. The ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party's chances of victory would soar dramatically if the international community recognized Kosovo's independence either de jure or de facto.
Western politicians and diplomats do not conceal their intention to settle the Kosovo issue by late 2006. Consequently, Serbian authorities must consolidate their modest success at the constitutional referendum during parliamentary elections before this happens. One can suppose that international mediators will now try to slow down the Kosovo final status process so as to allow Serbian authorities to prepare for elections.
Self-proclaimed republics on post-Soviet territory and the countries they broke away from are watching the Kosovo process closely. The leaders of Georgia and Moldova are very unlikely to use the seemingly attractive results of the Serbian constitutional referendum on Kosovo's status in their dealings with Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transdnestr. The Serbian referendum has once again revealed that the positions of Kosovo's Serbs and Albanians are miles apart.
Over 96% of Serbian voters in Kosovo's Prizren and Pec (Peja) districts cast their ballots at the referendum, whereas the Albanians ignored the plebiscite and did not even bother to vote against the draft Serbian constitution. This provided another pretext for discussions on Kosovo's possible partition into Serbian and Albanian sectors. However, self-proclaimed post-Soviet republics will hardly agree with applying the same scenario on their territories.
Pyotr Iskenderov is a member of the Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
