2nd Court Favors Serbian Opposition

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic granted his political opponents another possible victory when a court controlled by Milosevic ordered officials in a central Serbian town to recount votes cast in a local election last month. The court decision in Smederevska Palanka, a town 40 miles southeast of the capital, Belgrade, was another attempt by Milosevic to defuse four weeks of street protests that have marked the most serious and sustained challenge to his nine-year rule of Yugoslavia’s dominant republic. It followed a similar court decision Sunday in the southern city of Nis that brought the opposition a step closer to winning that city too. Smederevska Palanka and Nis are two of 14 cities and towns in which results of local elections on Nov. 17 were annulled after it became clear that opposition parties had wrested control from Milosevic’s Socialist Party. Nighttime protests continued in Belgrade and at least 10 other cities despite the rulings.