Serbian Leader Says He Accepts Foes’ Victories

In a stunning reversal, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic agreed Tuesday to recognize opposition victories in municipal elections--results he earlier annulled, triggering international outcry and more than 11 weeks of street demonstrations.

Milosevic ordered his prime minister to draft legislation to reinstate opposition wins in 14 cities, including the capital, Belgrade, according to the official state news agency, Tanjug.

The move was the most significant step thus far toward defusing a crisis that has besieged the government and threatened to destroy Serbia’s fragile economy. It came only after the dynamics of Serbian politics, and the image of Milosevic in the West’s eyes, had been irreversibly altered.

Aware, however, that Milosevic often takes with one hand what he gives with the other, opposition politicians who have been leading the daily protests reacted cautiously.

“This is a first step, but it is not enough,” opposition leader Zoran Djindjic declared to a huge, boisterous crowd that also greeted the news with skepticism.

Milosevic, writing to Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic, said the electoral disputes “have inflicted great damage to our country, both on domestic and international levels.” Tuesday was the “last moment to cut off the problem in the highest institutions of our republic,” he said.

Milosevic told Marjanovic to submit a bill to parliament that would enact the conclusions of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, whose fact-finding mission in December ratified all opposition victories that Milosevic voided.

No timetable was mentioned, however, and the exact legal basis for the move was murky.

“The state’s interest in improving our relationship with the OSCE and the international community as a whole is far more important than any number of [city council] seats in a couple of towns,” Milosevic wrote.

The concession followed the most violent police repression of the anti-government demonstrations, on Sunday and Monday, which left scores of people injured and more than 70 arrested. Those actions came amid other signs that Milosevic intended to get tough rather than back down.

Contradictory signals from the government have become the norm. Milosevic’s ruling coalition is said to be engulfed in a power struggle between hard-liners advocating a crackdown and moderates advocating conciliation.

“I’ve given up trying to predict what Milosevic will do,” said a Western diplomat. “He lets anger out one day, then uses his head the next. He had hoped to wait this out, but saw he couldn’t. I am an optimist, and it looks like this is for real.”

The government took the unusual step of announcing Milosevic’s new position at 3 p.m.--instead of using the customary nightly newscast--moments before the daily protest rally began in downtown Belgrade’s Republic Square. Leaders of the opposition Zajedno (Together) coalition read the news to thousands of demonstrators, who seemed stunned at first and then broke into cheers of “Victory!” and “Resign!” Still, organizers said the protest will continue.

Zajedno members also vowed to press for additional demands, including access to the electronic media that are controlled exclusively by Milosevic or his allies.

Djindjic said Milosevic apparently relented because his use of brute police force had failed to intimidate crowds, which gathered again Monday and Tuesday despite the police beatings. “But this cannot end without responsibility,” Djindjic declared to Tuesday’s rally. “Recognition of election results is not enough. The authorities have to find those who are responsible for stealing the elections and beating the citizens.”

If the Nov. 17 election results are finally reinstated, Djindjic will become the first non-Communist mayor of Belgrade--capital of both Serbia and the rump Yugoslavia, which includes Montenegro--since World War II.

Vuk Draskovic, another opposition leader, observed: “I would like to fight against Milosevic and defeat him in democratic elections. It is up to him whether we will fight against him in democratic elections or continue our struggle in the streets.”

Zajedno officials cautioned that Milosevic may still have tricks up his sleeve and that the proposing of a law to parliament may be nothing more than a maneuver to buy time. An earlier apparent climb-down by election officials was reversed by the courts, which are controlled by Milosevic.

In Washington, the Clinton administration also greeted the Milosevic announcement with skepticism, saying the legislation will be a positive first step if it indeed comes about.

The generally peaceful demonstrations that have filled downtown Belgrade and other cities every day for the last 11 weeks came to represent the greatest challenge ever to Milosevic’s decade-long, authoritarian rule. They began as a dispute over city hall elections and catapulted into broader demands for democracy from one of Europe’s last Communist regimes.

Although the unrest does not seem destined to topple Milosevic, it has created serious rifts within his government and exposed the true lack of democracy that Milosevic allies, including Washington, had chosen to ignore in the interests of regional stability.

“The crisis was throwing the society backward,” a senior official in Milosevic’s ruling coalition said Tuesday night. “It was becoming too dark. Crowds every day, the economy in trouble, the possibility of sanctions, isolation. . . . He finally understood something has to be done. But it’s a long way to normalization.”

At Republic Square, the crowd also was mulling over the news, and no one appeared ready to call it a day. “We don’t trust their words,” office clerk Rodoljub Josipovic, 45, said of the Milosevic move. “We will be here until we see each of these elected candidates in their seats in city hall.”

Tuesday marked a deadline for installation of Belgrade’s newly elected City Council, and there was speculation that Milosevic would use the election disarray to take over city government through a legal provision that allows “direct rule” under circumstances in which a city council cannot be seated.

Such a maneuver would clear the way for new elections, something Milosevic in the past has been said to favor but which the opposition refuses to accept. But by midnight, there was no indication that Milosevic had imposed direct rule in the capital.