Envoys Arrive to Ease Serbia Crisis

International envoys assigned to inspect Serbian election fraud arrived in Belgrade on Friday amid indications that President Slobodan Milosevic is prepared to re-hold municipal voting for the capital.

Already hit by more than a month of huge street demonstrations against his government, Milosevic is also facing increasing turmoil within his ruling party that further isolates the president and could weaken his hold on power.

The signals from the embattled regime were mixed Friday: Milosevic’s influential wife accused the generally peaceful demonstrators of taking Serbia to civil war, while the government staged old-style Communist rallies in a clumsy attempt to show it still enjoys popular support.

But in a sign of potential conciliation, a 10-member delegation from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe arrived at Milosevic’s invitation and immediately met with the president and leaders of the opposition coalition known as Zajedno, or Together.

Milosevic’s decision to annul municipal election victories scored by Zajedno in Belgrade, in Nis--Serbia’s second city--and in several other cities triggered the demonstrations, which continued Friday for the 33rd day.

Expectations for the OSCE mission, led by former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, are not high. Conclusions and recommendations that Gonzalez makes will not be binding on Serbia--the largest component, with tiny Montenegro, of the rump Yugoslavia--and there are fears that the delegation would be used merely to whitewash fraud.

Disputes over whether Milosevic should be singled out for a rebuke almost scuttled the mission even before it got here; members from Russia, Milosevic’s longtime ally, preferred to soft-pedal any criticism, diplomatic sources said.

But associates of Milosevic suggested that he wants to find a way out of a crisis that has brought scathing criticism of his regime and interrupted his rehabilitation in the West.

The re-holding of the Belgrade vote has emerged as the solution most favored by Milosevic, according to several officials from the ruling coalition interviewed this week. Under the scenario, the president would blame a small group of party officials for election irregularities, then order a new round of voting in the spring.

“Milosevic will say openly that a few powerful guys committed mistakes,” said a senior official from the ruling coalition. “This kind of international pressure we are feeling must be avoided. It is not good for us in Serbia.”

Opposition leaders have publicly said they will not accept new elections, insisting that the original results be reinstated. They repeated that position Friday. A Milosevic-controlled court restored opposition victories in Nis earlier this week, leaving Belgrade as the main prize.

As a minimum condition for new elections, opposition officials want access to a television station and other media freedoms; Milosevic and his allies now control all television and most radio.

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Yugoslav Foreign Minister Milan Milutinovic, speaking to reporters, left open the possibility of new elections for Belgrade.

“If they [the OSCE] find new evidence, new facts, I don’t see any problem with that,” he said. “But, of course, always within our institutions.”

The uproar filling Belgrade streets every day has stunned and divided members of Milosevic’s Socialist Party, who bungled the elections to begin with, then have seen the crisis only deepen. Party leadership is said to be in disarray.

“We were shocked, in the first place, at the election results,” said a Socialist Party official. “Then we were shocked by the reaction. And now we are shocked by our actions.”

Party officials are jockeying for position in anticipation of likely purges as Milosevic seeks scapegoats. The purges, however, are apparently on hold because of fear that the expelled would join the opposition, party sources said.

In two stormy meetings in recent days of the Socialist Party central committee, the decision to stage counterdemonstrations was made, according to people present. Several are held each day in cities across the country and broadcast on the evening news by state-controlled television.

The theme of the rallies is to accuse the opposition of being tools of foreign interventionist powers, such as the United States and Germany. Many Serbs still harbor acrimony toward Germany that dates back to World War II. Demonstrators attending the events carry identical placards with Milosevic’s picture and large Serbian flags.

Many Socialist leaders blame the party’s weakness on its coalition partner, the Yugoslav United Left, or JUL, a neo-Communist group run by Milosevic’s wife, Mirjana Markovic. JUL has little popular following but is gradually supplanting the Socialist Party by taking political and economic control.

Milosevic this fall awarded JUL numerous parliamentary and Cabinet seats. Its members include Serbia’s wealthiest businessmen, many of whom made their fortunes as war profiteers or by exploiting state monopolies.