He Lost; Now He Should Go

Official results of Sunday’s presidential election in Yugoslavia aren’t available, but the preliminary count makes clear that Slobodan Milosevic, the incumbent, has lost to the opposition candidate, Vojislav Kostunica, by a wide margin. Milosevic, indicted as a war criminal, did all he could to steal the election, harassing opponents and engaging in massive electoral fraud. The only credible move open to him now is to accept the results, step down and await his fate.

The United States and its Western allies, while holding out a promise to lift sanctions on Yugoslavia, should withhold any jubilation until a new regime is installed in Belgrade, and even then should be wary of the machinations that Milosevic and his henchmen have proved agile in employing to hold power in the Balkans over the past decade.

Washington and its NATO allies have long maintained that while Milosevic remains free there can be no stability in Yugoslavia, which includes the republics of Montenegro and Serbia and the Serbian province of Kosovo.

Western leaders believe Sunday’s election has ended Milosevic’s 13-year rule. Milosevic has other ideas. Faced with international pressure for his departure, the wily strongman first declared victory at the ballot booths and then, to buy more time, sought to force a runoff election in two weeks. His supporters had said earlier that even if Milosevic lost the election, constitutionally he could stay in office until the expiration of his term in the middle of next year. But the ruthless leader has finally painted himself into a corner and if he insists on holding on to power faces not only continued ostracism from the West but civil unrest at home.

“We will protest for as long as it takes,” Kostunica, 56, told his jubilant supporters. He declared the reported vote results “a people’s victory,” and Monday night some 50,000 Yugoslavs gathered in the main square of Belgrade to celebrate.

Replacing Milosevic with Kostunica would bring legitimacy to the Yugoslav government, but it would not turn Yugoslavia into a Western ally. The Serbs turned against Milosevic not so much because he waged brutal wars in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo but because he lost them, humiliated the Serbs and brought on NATO reprisals.

Kostunica himself is as much a Serb nationalist as Milosevic. He condemned last year’s NATO air raids, declared he does not recognize the war crimes tribunal in The Hague and said he would not turn in Milosevic. But, like most Serbs, he is weary of Yugoslavia’s isolation and knows that the country has to reestablish ties to the West if it wants much needed capital and access to foreign markets. More important, Kostunica, a constitutional lawyer who translated the Federalist Papers into Serbian, is untainted by the corruption and wheeling and dealing that have marked the Milosevic regime.

Milosevic is still president, but his allies are deserting and his power base is crumbling. The challenge for the West is to continue applying pressure for his departure without sparking nationalist backlash. The Serbs have had it with Milosevic’s corrupt rule. Voting him out of office was the easy part. Getting him out and setting up a democratic government will be much tougher.