Victorious Montenegrin Casts Challenge

Boosted by an election triumph, Montenegro’s reform-minded president threw down a challenge Monday to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic that could threaten the strongman’s rule.

Supporters of President Milo Djukanovic fired guns, waved flags and honked car horns in joy at his victory over a Milosevic protege, Momir Bulatovic, in Sunday’s parliamentary vote.

With 99.7% of the vote counted for the 78-seat Montenegrin parliament, Djukanovic’s “For a Better Life” coalition had secured 49.5% of the vote, the State Election Commission said. It said Bulatovic’s Socialist People’s Party took 36.1%.

A jubilant Djukanovic told cheering supporters that he hoped to build on the triumph and use it to spread democracy throughout Yugoslavia. Montenegro and the larger Serbia are the last republics remaining in the rump Yugoslavia.

Although this mountainous republic has only 630,000 residents, it supplies the same number of deputies to the federal Yugoslav parliament as Serbia, which has 10 million inhabitants.

Djukanovic and his aides are determined to stack Montenegro’s bloc with their supporters and hope to team up with Serbian opposition deputies to vote out Milosevic.

Djukanovic first challenged the Yugoslav power broker in the winter of 1996-97, coming out against Milosevic during massive protests against his rule.

Last fall, the Montenegrin then narrowly beat Bulatovic--his former best friend--for the republic’s presidency.

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Strongly backed by Washington and Western Europe, Djukanovic took office in January.

The strength of his triumph in Sunday’s elections could hand him a majority in the parliament. Besides Djukanovic’s and Bulatovic’s parties, only one other party--the Montenegrin separatist Liberal Alliance--passed the 3% vote threshold needed to get seats.

Djukanovic aides suggested Monday that they will insist on Bulatovic’s being replaced as federal premier. Milosevic maneuvered his protege into that office two weeks ago after the previous premier--also a Montenegrin--refused to crack down on Djukanovic’s pro-Western reforms.

About 120 election monitors dispatched by the 54-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe concluded that Sunday’s balloting “was generally well-conducted,” an OSCE statement said.