Yugoslav Premier Escapes Ouster by Narrow Margin

Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic narrowly escaped ouster from office in Belgrade Tuesday after the second no-confidence motion against him in two months failed by a single vote.

The vote was 18-17 in the upper house of Parliament in favor of Panic, a California businessman who won support from other reform-minded moderates. Pitted against Panic were nationalists loyal to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

On Monday, the lower house voted to dump Panic by a 93-24 margin after nationalist deputies accused him of being a spy for the United States and a traitor to the cause of a so-called Greater Serbia.

But Panic’s survival of the challenge orchestrated by Milosevic through constitutional channels could push Milosevic to employ more desperate measures in his determination to stay in power.

“Milosevic is most dangerous when he feels cornered,” said a Western diplomat in Belgrade. “We have no illusions that he will continue to play by the rules if he cannot win that way.”

Serbian police troops under Milosevic’s command seized the federal Interior Ministry two weeks ago, flouting the limited authority of Panic and the federal government to maintain order in the volatile remains of Yugoslavia.

Milosevic also controls tens of thousands of heavily armed police officers and soldiers in the province of Kosovo, where a repressed ethnic Albanian majority has become restive in its demands for autonomy.

Observers fear Milosevic might seek to divert attention from his political troubles in Belgrade by provoking ethnic conflict in Kosovo. Serbs revere Kosovo as the cradle of their medieval kingdom.

Federal and Serbian elections have been called for Dec. 20. That date looms as a de facto deadline in the escalating power struggle between Panic and Milosevic.

Milosevic has repeatedly tried to avoid a new vote in his republic but was forced to concede after Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic, the ideological godfather of the Serbian nationalist movement, abandoned the Milosevic camp amid widespread accusations that Serbian extremists in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina are committing war crimes.