Serbia Leader Draws on Reserve of Anger at Outside World in Elections : Balkans: Early returns show President Milosevic’s party winning in the countryside. More afflicted by sanctions, urban voters endorse the opposition.

Out of spite and defiance, Radosav Ristic cast his ballot Sunday for the Socialist Party of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic because that was the choice he believed would most irk his Western enemies.

It is not that Ristic relishes his nation’s role as a pariah state or that he is immune to the hardships of U.N. sanctions imposed to break Serbia’s will for waging war elsewhere in the Balkans.

The vote by the 51-year-old manager of a barren, state-owned food shop was a gesture of contempt for an outside world that he is powerless to influence and a demonstration of the nationalist pride likely to reinforce Milosevic’s grip on power.

“Milosevic is the best man to get sanctions lifted, and I’m not afraid to say so,” Ristic insisted. “I know that is not what America wants, but it is our right to decide.”

Early, partial returns from Sunday’s election for the 250-seat Serbian Parliament showed an opposition coalition called DEPOS leading in the capital of Belgrade, but Milosevic’s Socialists ahead everywhere else in the country.

Official results are not expected until Tuesday, and in the absence of reliable polling, few political observers here were confident that they could predict the outcome.

But even the most avid opponents of Milosevic, who see his five years in power as the cause of Serbia’s ruin, concede that his Socialists are likely to remain the strongest force in the next Parliament and the controlling party in a governing coalition, if he is forced to share power.

As the ruling party, the Socialists have been blamed by many urban Serbs for the record hyper-inflation that has made the dinar--the currency Serbia shares with Montenegro, its junior partner in the rump Yugoslavia--virtually worthless and gutted the incomes and pensions of this republic’s 10 million people.

Yet Milosevic has edged tantalizingly close to delivering his long-promised state of Greater Serbia.

Land seized by Serbian rebels in the former Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina is expected to be proclaimed part of a union with Serbia as soon as a Western-mediated peace accord can be concluded.

Some sources here predict that such a pact may be signed in Geneva or Brussels later this week.

In light of Milosevic’s territorial gains, many Serbs continue to have faith in him despite their poverty and isolation.

The 52-year-old Serbian president, accused by Western politicians of having instigated the war, exuded confidence when he cast his ballot at a Belgrade polling station early on voting day.

He brought along his ardently Marxist wife, Mirjana Markovic, and their college-age son, Marko, and marked his ballot for the Socialists in plain view of the assembled cameras before patting it into the box with a decisive thump.

Turnout throughout Serbia was strong, according to Electoral Committee Chairman Zoran Djumic.

TV Serbia reported that more than 50% of the 7 million eligible voters had cast their ballots by noon, ensuring that this fourth parliamentary vote in three years would be deemed valid.

Voters in Belgrade expressed more support for the array of left- and right-wing opposition parties than for the Socialists.

“All I could buy with my pension this month was five kilograms (11 pounds) of potatoes,” complained 67-year-old Angelina Milosavljevic, a retired textile worker who now depends on charity.

As she stood in a bread line run by the DEPOS opposition coalition headed by charismatic writer Vuk Draskovic, she predicted that the shame Milosevic has brought on Serbia will compel her countrymen to vote out the ruling party.

But only minutes outside of the capital, the attitude of disgust with the regime quickly dissipates.

In the countryside, where most voting-age Serbs reside, living conditions have not been so drastically affected by the sanctions.

“Milosevic never talks of war, only of peace. If it wasn’t for him, we would probably have war in Serbia now too,” said pensioner Milan Lazarovic, sitting with friends and family around a barbecue pit alongside the road in rural Vrcin to the southeast, preparing to celebrate the Orthodox Christian holiday of St. Nikola’s Day, which coincided with the election.

“We will always have enough food and enough slivovitz ,” added Dragoje Mladenovic, brandishing a bottle of plum brandy he and the others were swigging while tending roasting lamb and piglet. “Serbia will never be driven from defending its brothers by these sanctions. They are just (President) Clinton’s provocations.”

While most opposition parties have vowed not to join forces with the Socialists, Milosevic has a few potential coalition partners, should his party fall short of the 126 seats needed for a Parliament majority.

Democratic Party candidate Zoran Djindjic has hinted that he might side with Milosevic if national unity could get sanctions removed, and escaped felon-turned-politician Zeljko (Arkan) Raznjatovic is beholden to the Serbian president, who could turn him over to Interpol or the U.N. war crimes tribunal.

Few political observers were predicting a resounding victory for the Socialists because of the disillusionment of urban voters. Some even suggested that the widely divergent opposition parties might collectively outpoll the Socialists.

However, the president’s term runs four more years, and he has the power to impose a state of emergency to prevent a takeover by the opposition or to restore order in the event that deteriorating conditions lead to unrest.