Yugoslavia Leader Panic Survives a No-Confidence Vote

Prime Minister Milan Panic survived a no-confidence vote Friday mounted by nationalist deputies in the federal Parliament opposed to his conciliatory moves to help end the warfare in the Balkans.

Panic, a former Southern California businessman who recently took the post of Yugoslav prime minister, won support by a show of hands from 66 out of 103 deputies in the Chamber of Nations. Thirty voted against him, and seven abstained.

Because he survived the vote there, the matter did not go to the Chamber of Republics.

Earlier in the day, both chambers of Parliament endorsed his delegation’s performance at international peace talks in London last week by 111 votes to 33.

Deputies of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s Socialist Party and its ally, the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, had denounced Panic for his pledge to recognize the borders of the former Yugoslav republics that have gained independence.

But the Socialists, who hold the majority in the Parliament, later appeared to lose their nerve, and their leader, Borislav Jovic, told them not to vote against Panic.

By winning the confidence vote, Panic gained ground in a power struggle with Milosevic.

Panic takes a pragmatic line on the issue of Croatian and Bosnian independence, while Milosevic backs the Serbs’ seizure of territory to build a Greater Serbia.