Hard-liner is new speaker of parliament
The Serbian parliament elected a hard-line nationalist as speaker, drawing condemnation from the European Union and stirring bitter memories of the rule of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
Tomislav Nikolic of the ultranationalist Radical Party won a comfortable majority, backed by outgoing Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica’s Democratic Party of Serbia and by Milosevic’s weakened Socialists.
The Radicals oppose handing fugitive Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic to the United Nations war crimes tribunal, a key EU demand blocking Serbia’s membership hopes.
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