Rabid anti-Westerner wants Milosevic's job
By DUSAN STOJANOVIC in Vienna
With Slobodan Milosevic's rule shaken by Serbia's withdrawal from Kosovo, an even more extremist and anti-Western politician is bidding to take his place.
After quitting Milosevic's government when NATO-led troops marched into the southern Serbian province, Vojislav Seselj is poised to mount the greatest political challenge to the Yugoslav President since he came to power 10 years ago.
If Mr Seselj succeeds, it will put into place a nationalist leadership even more strident and anti-Western than the regime NATO just tried to bomb into submission.
Mr Seselj, a 45-year-old lawyer and Serbia's Acting Deputy Prime Minister, launched his political career on his success as a paramilitary commander during the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. Virulent in his support for a "greater Serbia", Mr Seselj once declared his men would "take out the eyes of Croatians with rusty spoons".
NATO-led peacekeepers in Bosnia deemed his outbursts threatening enough to expel him from the country late last year.
When Western officials recently accused Serb troops of raping Kosovo women, Mr Seselj denied it by saying they were too ugly for Serb men. On the eve of NATO strikes, he threatened that when "the first allied bomb" fell on the Serbian soil, "there will be no Albanians left in Kosovo".
With Serbia defeated, its economy in tatters and the possibility of social unrest looming, many independent analysts compare it with Germany after World War I when Adolf Hitler came to power.
Mr Seselj's withdrawal from the government - temporarily frozen by a decree - could signal hisfirst real attempt to take over.
Mr Seselj said last week that his Serbian Radical Party "is ready for elections, and we want them as soon as possible on all levels. It's for the people to decide whether they are in favour of changes."
In 1997, Milosevic's candidate, Milan Milutinovic, narrowly defeated Mr Seselj in Serbia's presidential elections in a vote many independent observers described as fraudulent. Since then, Mr Seselj has been gaining popularity and has acquired key allies in the army and the police.
The Serbian Radical Party, which openly advocates ethnic intolerance, is already the second-largest in the Serbian Parliament, with 82 of 250 seats. Milosevic's Socialist-Communist coalition has 110 seats. - AP
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