Nikolic, deputy to the Hague tribunal indictee Vojislav Seselj, was elected with the votes of his party and the Socialist Party of Serbia of the late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, as well as with the support of the Democratic Party of Serbia of Vojislav Kostunica and its coalition partner New Serbia. This was an additional reason for the pro-European parties to urge Serbian President Boris Tadic to break off negotiations with Kostunica on the formation of a new government, dissolve the parliament and call new elections.
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader Cedomir Jovanovic, one of the closest associates of Serbia's first democratically elected prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, who was assassinated in 2003, said that Nikolic's election was the election of "a backward looking, war-mongering and isolationist policy".
Jovanovic called on President Tadic, who is leader of the Democratic Party, to discontinue talks on the formation of a new government, dissolve the parliament and call new elections.
Danas daily recalled that the Radicals had always been the hardline wing of Milosevic's ruling coalition which had led Serbia to chaos. There is therefore no justification for an alliance of other parties with the Radicals, the daily said, pointing to Kostunica's party, which it said was losing credibility as a democratic, pro-European party by supporting the Radicals.
Foreign correspondents in Belgrade reported negatively about Nikolic's election, describing him as a leader of ultranationalists and supporter of the Hague indictee Seselj.
Another Belgrade-based daily, Blic, reported that the failure of talks on a coalition government consisting of Tadic's party, the G 17 Plus party and Kostunica's party, as well as Nikolic's election as parliament speaker, marked an end to a seven-year-long story of a democratic bloc and that Serbia was now closest to new elections.
President Boris Tadic said in a statement that Nikolic's election was very harmful for national interests and called on progressive forces to make an effort to secure a European future for the country.