Nationalism : Yugoslav Unity on Line in Serbian Vote : It’s seen as a last chance to avert a rush toward disintegration. But the forces of peace are trailing.

Serbia’s date with the ballot box Sunday will end one of Europe’s few remaining one-party regimes, but the election also provides a last chance for Yugoslavia to reconsider its headlong rush toward disintegration and civil war.

Serbia is the last of Yugoslavia’s six republics to expose communism to a competitive vote. While the multi-party ballot is a sign of democratic development, the forces for peace and unity are expected to lose.

Four Yugoslav republics that held elections earlier this year stripped the Communists of their parliamentary majorities, voting instead for nationalists pursuing independence from Belgrade.

In Serbia, by contrast, communism and nationalism have worked hand in hand.

The Serbian Socialists, as the former Communists are known, have won strong support among the 6.8 million voters by vowing to settle old scores with rival Croatia and by subjugating ethnic Albanians in the province of Kosovo.

The leading opposition group, the radical Serbian Renewal Movement, has made the same promise of Serbian supremacy, while casting the former Communists as despots who will stop at nothing to stay in power.

Presidential contender Vuk Draskovic said on the final day of campaigning Thursday that a 30-year-old supporter was slain while hanging political posters in the southern town of Vranje.

A victory by either of the front-running parties would probably encourage the wealthy and westward-looking republics of Slovenia and Croatia to step up efforts to secede from the federation, which they say is controlled by Serbian bullies.

Yugoslavia’s army remains under the command of orthodox Communist generals, predominantly Serbs, who have threatened to use force to prevent secession, which would probably unleash a civil war. Armed conflict in the volatile Balkans would pose a threat to others in Europe, as borders established only this century would be called into question.

Defense Minister Veljko Kadijevic warned this week that the army favors socialism, heightening fears of a military coup.

Federal unity and peaceful negotiation of differences are the aims of the new party of federal Prime Minister Ante Markovic, the Alliance of Reformist Forces. But the moderates have been virtually ignored in Serbia’s vitriolic campaign.

Incumbent Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, a hard-line Socialist, on Wednesday condemned the prime minister’s party for trumpeting “ideas of a false Yugoslavism, the aim of which is to make people afraid of Serbia and the Serbian people.”

Draskovic, whose black beard and dreadlocks evoke the image of Rasputin, wound up his campaign with a fiery appeal to followers for calm in the face of provocation.

“They wanted to have bloodshed because this is the only way for them to retain power,” he said of the Socialists. “I beg you not to retaliate.”

By week’s end, Draskovic was said to be running an even race with Milosevic, the early favorite.

A dozen opposition parties last week threatened a boycott, charging that the former Communists were monopolizing the media and packing vote-counting panels.

More than 50 opposition parties are challenging the Socialists, portending a divided assembly that would be unable to exert its will over the other republics, heightening Serbia’s sense of isolation.

Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Macedonia--the republics that have already held elections--want Yugoslavia reshaped into a loose confederation of independent states, like the European Community.

Most Serbs insist on a strong federation, with their capital of Belgrade continuing to wield central authority. That position is supported only by tiny Montenegro, the sixth republic, which has always moved in lock-step with Serbia. Montenegrins also go to the polls on Sunday.

Serbs, who number about 9 million, are the largest ethnic group in Yugoslavia, a nation formed in 1918 from remnants of the Ottoman Turkish and Austro-Hungarian empires. Today, Yugoslavia’s 23 million people remain divided by nationality, language, alphabet, culture and religion.