Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin Broadcasters View “Decisive” Serbian Runoff

Broadcasters in Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro give considerable coverage to the Serbian presidential election runoff on Sunday 3 February, although some treat it as top news in their main evening bulletins, while others have it somewhat lower on the agenda.

Croatia

Croatian state-run TV HTV has the story as the second item in its main 1830 gmt newscast, after a report on the success of Croatian skier Ivica Kostelic in the World Cup skiing championship in Val d’Isere, France. The report opens with the announcer wondering whether the “pro-European Tadic or Seselj’s Radical Nikolic” would win the “decisive” election, followed by the Belgrade correspondent’s report, which is factual at first, but then refocuses on the two presidential candidate’s stance on the Croatian Serb minority. The reporter says that Tadic, who enjoys the support of Croatian Serb leader Milorad Pupovac, did not want to comment on the subject until the election results were known, while Nikolic agreed earlier that day to a short interview in the street. According to the reporter, this was the first time that Nikolic “pledged to respect Croatia’s present borders”, thus backing off from his boss’s dream of a Greater Serbia.

Nikolic is shown speaking to the reporter, saying that if he became president, as soon as Zagreb guaranteed Serb refugees the right to return to their homes, relations with Belgrade would normalize. He added that he was fighting for Serbia’s borders, but that he respected Croatia’s borders as well, although “this does not mean that I will stop calling for the autonomy of Croatia’s Serbs”.

This is followed by a short interview with former Sky News reporter Jaksa Scekic, who said that Nikolic’s ideas were in contravention of modern European trends, and a factual report on voting in the Serb-populated areas of Kosovo.

The next item in the bulletin is an interview with professor Branko Caratan, who briefly comments on the possible victory of Tomislav Nikolic, whom the announcer describes as “a former Serb volunteer on the Slavonia front”. Caratan believes that Nikolic’s victory would create “unease” in Croatian-Serbian relations and isolate Serbia in the region.

At 2200 gmt, after the outcome of the poll became clear, Zagreb radio broadcast a factual report on the results, stressing Tadic’s insistence on “Serbia continuing along its democratic path”, and saying that the most interesting aspects of the election were that more than 67 per cent of the electorate had turned out and that Tadic had won around 160,000 votes more than Nikolic.

Montenegro

Montenegrin TV opens its central news bulletin with a report on the election, saying that the outcome is “totally uncertain”. It has a brief interview with Marko Blagojevic of the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID), who expects the turnout to be larger than in the first round. State-run radio also has the story as the first item in its 2200 gmt bulletin. The report is entirely factual, ending with Nikolic conceding victory at his news conference held after the Republic Election Commission had announced the preliminary results.

Bosnia-Hercegovina

Bosnian public broadcaster BH-TV One has the report as the fifth item in its central 1800 gmt news bulletin, having said in the headlines that Serbia was voting for “Europe or isolation”. After showing Tadic and Nikolic casting their votes, the TV broadcasts a brief interview with Serbian analyst Milan Nikolic who says he believes Tadic will win, but does not rule out protests and unrest if the Radicals are deprived of the victory “which is under their noses”.

The next item in the bulletin is a report on Kosovo Albanians’ view of the Serbian poll, featuring a statement by Kosovo Premier Thaci’s aide Hajredin Kuci, who says that the Serbian election has no bearing on Kosovo’s future.

Originally published by BBC Monitoring research 3 Feb 08.

(c) 2008 BBC Monitoring European. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.