“Strange are the convulsions of defeat.” — Winston Churchill

So Serbia’s Radical Party, having lost two Presidential and three Parliamentary elections in a row, is breaking up. Sort of.

If you’re not a Serbia-watcher, here’s the short version: the Radicals are Serbia’s Obnoxious Populist Nationalist Party. Most Balkan countries have OPMPs. If they can corner the entire OPMP vote, they typically poll around 25%… sometimes lower, never much higher. Which in most places makes them a nuisance, maybe a very large nuisance, but not a serious threat.

What makes the Radicals different from, say, “Attack” in Bulgaria or Vadim Tudor’s Greater Romania Party is Serbia’s unhappy recent history. While “Attack” and such may have a lot of members who fantasize wistfully about gathering members of unpopular and despised minorities together, killing them, and dumping their bodies in a nearby large body of water, the Radical Party includes a number of people who have actually done so. In fact, its leader is currently on trial in the Hague for war crimes.

This means that the Radicals are simply unacceptable to most of the international community. This in turn means that, because the Radicals consistently claim around a quarter of the popular vote, Serbia has to keep forming weird coalition governments in order to not incude them. (It’s worse than it sounds because of the way voting in Serbia works. About a fifth [correction — more like a twentieth] of all votes get wasted because they’re for parties that don’t reach a 5% cutoff for representation in Parliament. So, when seats in Parliament are awarded, the Radicals take not a quarter but more like a third.)

So the Radicals have been a huge headache — not so much to the international community as to other Serbian politicians. The fact that they’re really obnoxious in opposition, throwing lots of brickbats and mugging for the cameras without ever offering constructive help, is just gravy.

Until this week. When Radical leader Seselj went off to the Hague, he appointed his deputy Tomislav Nikolic to lead the party in his absence. Which Nikolic has loyally done for the last several years.

But last week Nikolic had enough. The details are unclear — at least to me — but it looks like Seselj, or someone, went over his head to give instructions to the party’s MPs on how to vote on Serbia’s SAA agreement. (Which is another long and fascinating story in itself. Maybe later.) Whereupon Nikolic stepped down as party leader.

Nikolic’s official explanation is that he “has his dignity”, which presumably is politician-ese for “I’m tired of being overruled and ignored by a guy who’s been in a jail cell for the last five and a half years.” However, it’s worth keeping in mind that, in those five and a half years, Nikolic has lost a whole bunch of elections. Being leader of the opposition — again — probably isn’t looking so good. So, why not separate himself from the stink of flop sweat (hey, those lost elections weren’t his fault! He’s a very attractive candidate!) and do something more interesting?

Which he has: Nikolic has formed his own political club, “Forward Serbia”. And so far, 11 out of the 78 Radical MPs have peeled off to join him.

It’s unclear what “political club” means here. It would be difficult, and possibly unconstitutional, for Nikolic to form his own political party. Serbia, like many former Communist countries, used to have a big problem with MPs hopping from party to party. So the current Serbian constitution allows the parties to enforce loyalty — for instance, by having members sign undated letters of resignation, which the party leadership can hold. So Nikolic can’t really form a new party — but he can form a “club”, which presumably will vote as it pleases, and may perhaps develop its own organization and finances. And might perhaps evolve into a new party, if they can negotiate the legal issues.

The new Radical Party leadership isn’t happy about this, of course, but there’s not much they can do. Nikolic announced — I am not making this up — that he had “lost” the unsigned resignation letters. (Remember, he was the party’s leader. So he was the guy holding them for safekeeping. Whoops.) It’s unclear whether “Forward Serbia” will become a new party, or will just be a loudly disaffected Siamese twin to the Radicals. But either way, it’s a major hassle for them.

There hasn’t been much attention or response to this yet from the rest of the world. And I don’t know how it’s playing out among Serbian watches. (Commenters?)

But speaking only for myself? Popcorn, please.