Serbia’s Government: Trouble Ahead

“IT IS the government of the living dead,” says Zarko Korac, an opposition member of parliament. It can stumble on for a bit, he adds, but sooner rather than later it will collapse. Such talk angers Ivica Dacic, Serbia’s prime minister. He is engaged in delicate talks with Serbia’s erstwhile province, Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008. Yet the talk at home is only of an early election. “I have had enough of hearing about it,” says Mr Dacic.The talk reached fever pitch after lurid press claims that, as interior minister in the previous government, Mr Dacic met an alleged drug lord, Misha Banana. Serbian newspapers say that Mr Banana, whose real name is Rodoljub Radulovic, was an associate of Darko Saric, who allegedly ran a cocaine-smuggling ring from South America which was broken up by police in 2010. Both men are now indicted fugitives. The reports cite police surveillance tapes suggesting that Mr Banana gave Mr Dacic and an aide BlackBerry phones. He is also said to have asked about an investigation into an associate later shot dead in Montenegro. Another issue is that Ivica Toncev, Mr Dacic’s national security adviser, was alleged by OCCRP, a reporters’ group, to have worked for another gangster who was later shot dead.Mr Dacic says that, although he met Mr Banana, nobody from the security services told him he was under surveillance as a suspect. He denies the…

The Economist: Europe