Tomislav Nikolic, Deputy Leader of the Serbian Radical Party

Date and place of birth: February 15, 1952, Kragujevac.

Basic biographical data: Graduated from the Technical Secondary School, Engineering Department. An athlete. Before becoming a politician worked in the railway construction company ``Zegrap'' on the Belgrade Bar railway line. Later promoted to head of the Investments and Maintenance Department of the Public Utilities Company in Kragujevac, and was directly in charge of the cemeteries in Kragujevac. That's when he got his nickname ``Toma the Gravedigger.'' An anticommunist. He is also a religious man, but does not make a public spectacle of the fact.

How did he enter politics: In the beginning he was a member of the People's Radical Party (NRS). In February 1991, along with SRS leader Vojislav Seselj he was one of the initiators of the unification of the NRS and the local committees of the Serbian Chetnik Movement into the Serbian Radical Party.

As a politician, what should he be proud of, and what should he be wary of: In a very short time he has definitely become the most powerful ``No. 2'' man in Serbian politics, thus giving the lie to claims that all Serbian parties have only one leader and no one else. The fact that the talkative Seselj is the party's unchallenged leader, did not prevent Nikolic from attaining the position of a strong no. 2 in the party. Some think that his strength should begin to worry him. They believe that he could discover one day that he is strong enough to break away, and found his own party.

What has politics brought him: A change of nicknames. The nasty ``Toma the gravedigger'' has been replaced with the more dignified ``Toma Voivoda (Duke).'' Seselj promoted him to a Chetnik voivoda in May last year in Knezina on Mount Romanija. Last year Seselj also appointed him Prime Minister of the Radical's shadow cabinet. Nikolic then said: ``The situation is changing in our favor daily.'' In the meantime, in spite of this optimism, ``Toma Voivoda'' did not become the Serbian PM, nor did Serbia become a duchy. Instead, he remained an MP with the greatest number of public cautions for ``verbal offenses.''

What do they accuse him of: That he is responsible for a significant increase in the costs of Assembly sessions, because of the presence of special police units during sessions in charge of throwing him out.

His political program: The Serbian cause in a hundred different ways, summed up in the sentence: ``There can be no bartering at the expense of the Serb lands.'' ``I believe that Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic will sell out the Republic of Serb Krajina. That wasn't his idea when we entered the war. If it had been, we certainly wouldn't have supported him.''

What was his program when he worked in the Kragujevac Public Services Company: ``I stopped all tomb selling. I consider it a dishonorable business. Whenever such a contract reached me, I'd send for the grandson who was selling his grandfather's grave. I'd attack him: `Aren't you ashamed of yourselfselling your grandfather's grave?' They'd usually be ashamed and give up the idea. If somebody didn't want to pay or didn't have enough money, we would look after the grave at the company's expense.''

What he most insists on today: The fact that the Radicals and the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) were never very close. Those who remind him that there had been a love affair, are told: ``We taught them (the SPS) patriotism. We were never shared power with them. We didn't take part in various corruption scandals with them.'' If someone is insistent, then Nikolic admits that the love affair with the Socialists broke over the VanceOwen plan.

What has he discovered from reading books: ``I have long been thinking that the SPS is spreading nationalsocialism. When they accused us of being a fascist party, I got hold of my books and discovered that I was right. I found out exactly what the nationalsocialist ideology advocated, and discovered how it was being implemented by the SPS.''

What awaits him: More studying. It is said that Seselj has ordered him to get a university degree (even the one in Pristina will do) in the shortest possible period.