Polls bring Balkans closer to Europe
By Wolfgang Koydl
ISTANBUL: From the beginning they were the poor relations in the collapse of communism: the Serbs, Romanians, Albanians and Bulgarians. The first started an appalling civil war, while the second got busy butchering their former dictators. All of them dragged their feet on economic reform, and paid the price.
The ancient gulf between the presumed civilizations of western Europe and the backward eastern European countries had survived the transition to the "new world order."
That was the thinking, at least, which led western Europe to quickly write off much of the Balkan peninsula; how much more promising to deal with such paragons as the governments in Warsaw, Prague, Budapest or the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana.
In the impenetrable ravines of the Balkans, it was said, the people had never really managed to throw off their communist past. The old Bolshevik cadres had simply donned new, nationalist mantles -- and had retained power.
But since the weekend, things look different. Three elections in three countries -- Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), Bulgaria and Romania -- have given cause for real hope for the first time in seven years.
Even though the three countries are different in many ways, voters sent the politicians in their respective capitals of Belgrade, Sofia and Bucharest the identical message: They want security and stability and are demanding reform, even though they may be its victims.
Small wonder then that a leading Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, rejoiced. "The Balkans has moved closer to Europe," it declared.
Bitter defeats were dealt to the ruling ex-communists in both Bulgaria and Romania, where there may be a change in government soon, following the governing Party for Social Democracy's poor finish, 10 percentage points behind the opposition Democratic Convention.
That alone would have been enough to terrify ruling circles in Bucharest, but the success of the Convention's Emil Constantinescu in forcing President Ion Iliescu to a second ballot later this month came as a total shock. Especially disturbing to the country's rulers is the razor-thin gap of only a few percentage points between the two men.
An even stronger rebuff was served up to the former communists in Bulgaria, whose presidential candidate, Ivan Marazov, went down in a landslide. Even pessimists in his Bulgarian Socialist Party were startled when Peter Stoyanov of the conservative Union of Democratic Forces polled an impressive 59.9 percent in a run- off to become the country's new president.
Although as president, Stoyanov will have no automatic influence on or power over new policies for Bulgaria, where the Socialists will still dominate the government, the magnitude of his victory was so striking that a startled Prime Minister Zhan Videnov quickly promised "important, radical and perhaps even painful decisions in the interest of the country."
Such thinking is long overdue, for Bulgaria's miserable economic situation can largely be blamed on the ex-communists' long-standing practice -- in opposition as well as in government -- of torpedoing urgent economic reforms.
The situation is somewhat different in Yugoslavia, where a leftist coalition led by Slobodan Milosevic and his wife, Mirjana Markovic, is expected to take an absolute majority in parliament. Yet even here, the West can take some satisfaction, and not only because there will be continuity in Belgrade.
The election was by all accounts fairly run, and Milosevic -- who mastered the transition from communist leader to Serbian nationalist -- can now govern as a pro-European, free market economic reformer.
The people of the southern Balkans have sent a clear signal that they want to belong to Europe, even if that means some suffering and doing without, and now is the time for Europe to reply with a signal of its own. In Brussels, Paris and Bonn there has long been little regard for the poor relations from southeastern Europe - and that must change. Without them, Europe is incomplete.
-- The Guardian