BELGRADE: A decision to snap presidential polls in January could cause Serbia’s shaky ruling coalition to collapse and be replaced by a nationalist government, with Kosovo on the verge of independence, analysts said on Thursday.

Parliamentary speaker Oliver Dulic, a member of President Boris Tadic’s pro-European Democratic Party (DS), announced the Jan 20 poll late on Wednesday, sparking outrage from its biggest coalition partner.

The Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) had earlier sought to discuss the election date after a crucial UN Security Council debate on Kosovo set for Dec 19.

On Thursday, the DSS of moderate nationalist Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica called on Dulic to revoke the decision, which it said was done without their consent and went against the coalition agreement.

Political analyst Slobodan Antonic said the scheduling of the election “indicates that the relations in the coalition are disturbed.”

“This is a challenge for the coalition and it could happen easily that this is the beginning of a serious crisis in the government,” the university professor said.

Others went further, warning the crisis could even bring an end to the uneasy coalition formed after four months of tortuous negotiations following January 2007 parliamentary elections.

“If the coalition partners part ways, there is a possibility of the DSS forming a new parliamentary majority with New Serbia and the Serbian Radical Party,” English-language news service VIP said in a commentary.

But Ljiljana Smajlovic, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Politika, said although the government was in danger of crumbling, she doubted it would happen during the decisive phase of determining Kosovo’s status.

The political “crisis ... could cause the collapse of the government, but frankly I’d be very surprised if that happened,” Smajlovic said.

“It would be incredible that a government that proved so difficult to assemble and with so much at stake (over Kosovo) would let itself collapse,” she added.

The presidential election is expected to pit Tadic against Tomislav Nikolic of the ultra-nationalist Radicals, the single strongest force in parliament.

If no candidate wins outright, a run-off will be held on Feb 3, after which Albanian leaders in the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo are expected to get the green light from Western powers to declare independence.

Serbian Infrastructure Minister Velimir Ilic, the leader of key DSS ally the New Serbia party, said he was angered that Tadic’s Democrats broke the agreement.

The Democratic Party “scheduled presidential elections unexpectedly and without any kind of consultations,” Ilic said.

“New Serbia wanted to have its own candidate, however now we aren’t allowed to. How can we run for office? For which country? In Serbia with or without Kosovo?” Formally still a Serbian province, Kosovo has been run by a mission of the United Nations since mid-1999 when Nato bombing halted a crackdown by Belgrade-controlled forces on its breakaway ethnic Albanian majority.

In four months of UN-backed talks that ended in failure on Monday, Belgrade was only willing to offer the province broad autonomy. Most Serbs consider the southern province their country’s spiritual heartland.

“The disturbed relations of the coalition partners at this moment have weakened the negotiation position of Belgrade (on Kosovo), which is regrettable from the position of national and state interests,” said analyst Antonic.

The presidential elections will be the first in Serbia since it adopted a constitution last year that declares Kosovo an “integral” part of the former Yugoslav republic.—AFP