London - A hardline radical is to take over the leadership of the Serb-run entity in Bosnia, driving a massive hole through Western policy in the Balkans, writes Jonathan Steele. Mr Nikola Poplasen, whose shock victory over the Western-supported candidate for the presidency of the Republika Srpska was confirmed yesterday, has made it clear he prefers a go-it-alone policy of unification with Serbia rather than the restoration of a multiethnic Bosnia.
His victory hands the Yugoslav President, Mr Slobodan Milosevic, another powerful card just when Western governments are attempting to put pressure on him over the Serb-run province of Kosovo. Mr Poplasen defeated Mrs Biljana Plavsic, who used to be an ultra hardliner until she broke both with the former Bosnian Serb president and indicted war criminal, Dr Radovan Karadzic, as well as with President Milosevic in Belgrade.