Serbian lawmakers debate sacking hardline speaker

BELGRADE, May 13 (Reuters) Serbia's parliament today debated for a second day the replacement of ultranationalist speaker Tomislav Nikolic, a condition in a coalition deal forged between the country's two main parties under Western pressure.

Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, a moderate nationalist, and pro-Western President Boris Tadic agreed a coalition on Friday after 16 weeks of on-off talks, to the relief of Western governments who had feared a nationalist resurgence.

Kostunica backed Nikolic for speaker earlier this week, a move seen as an attempt to pressure Tadic.

But, after urging from the European Union, which called Nikolic's election to Serbia's third highest post a return to the dark days of late autocrat Slobodan Milosevic, the parties formed a government and are cooperating to unseat him.

Nikolic's anti-western Radical Party cannot block the removal of their deputy leader but have vowed to use all their speaking time to delay it. The session originally started yesterday evening, breaking off in the early hours.

''The reason he is being kicked out is because he is an obstacle to the destruction of Serbia,'' said senior Radical official Aleksandar Vucic. ''We are not fighting for the EU in this parliament, but for Serbia.'' After voting to replace Nikolic, parliament must discuss a law on ministries, and Kostunica will officially present his cabinet in a session expected tomorrow or Tuesday.

The government must be voted in before midnight May 15, a deadline extended by 24 hours from the original cut-off time, or new elections must be held.

Kostunica's coalition will immediately have to face the challenge of restarting stalled EU association talks and fight against a United Nations resolution expected to grant its breakaway Kosovo province supervised independence, as its ethnic Albanian majority demands, by summer.

Serbia rejects independence for Kosovo, which has been run by the UN since NATO bombed in 1999 to oust Serb forces who had killed 10,000 civilians in a two-year war with guerrillas.

Reuters DS GC1858