Yugoslav Opposition Candidate Declares Victory Amid Uncertainties

Opposition members were expelled early Monday from the federal commission certifying the results of Yugoslavia’s weekend elections, adding to widespread suspicion that President Slobodan Milosevic is trying to fake a victory.

But Vojislav Kostunica, the opposition candidate backed by a coalition of 18 parties, told reporters that he considered himself president-elect, based on unofficial results showing him with 55.3% of the vote to Milosevic’s 34.3%.

The opposition’s claim Monday night was based on a count of 65% of ballots cast. The counting is carried out by local election boards at polling stations across Yugoslavia. Milosevic’s ruling coalition continued to insist that the ballot count showed he would win.

Under Yugoslav law, however, the Federal Electoral Commission, which is stacked with Milosevic supporters, is responsible for verifying the local counting and declaring a winner.

Kostunica’s coalition said Monday that it was willing to give the commission until 8 p.m. Wednesday local time to complete its work. If the panel hasn’t declared Kostunica the winner by then, his supporters will do it themselves, one of the top officials in Kostunica’s camp said.

“We are demanding that the Federal Electoral Commission start doing its job and finally meet,” Cedomir Jovanovic, chief of the 18-party democratic opposition’s headquarters, told reporters in Belgrade, the capital of both Yugoslavia and Serbia, the larger of the federation’s two republics.

“After we receive the remaining results, we will on Wednesday declare Vojislav Kostunica president of Yugoslavia,” he added. “But, with pleasure, we will accept such news [sooner] if the Federal Electoral Commission declares it according to its legal obligation.”

But Milosevic’s Socialist Party claimed Monday that he was ahead with 45% of the vote to Kostunica’s 40%. Some here read that as a signal that the Yugoslav leader might answer mounting domestic and international pressure to concede defeat by, instead, challenging Kostunica in a second round of voting.

Zoran Djindjic, Kostunica’s campaign manager, said the election commission was probably awaiting instructions from Milosevic on how to deny Kostunica more than 50% of the votes and force a runoff election Oct. 8.

At least 50,000 of Kostunica’s supporters packed Belgrade’s central square Monday night in a peaceful rally to back up his claim to power. Serbian police, who months ago attacked opposition marchers with clubs and tear gas, stayed away this time.

Milosevic “is finished, it’s over, we won,” the Kostunica supporters shouted. Others chanted: “Slobo, save Serbia. Kill yourself!”

The opposition’s ballot count showing Kostunica the winner was corroborated almost exactly by ultranationalist Vojislav Seselj’s Serbian Radical Party. Seselj is a key partner in Milosevic’s ruling coalition, and his indirect confirmation of Kostunica’s vote count significantly complicated Milosevic’s effort to hold on to power.

It was a hint of the unraveling of Milosevic’s intricate web of control. The Clinton administration first said publicly almost two years ago that it was trying to bring down Milosevic and destroy that network.

Sounding less confident of outright victory than ever, the Socialists’ general secretary, Gorica Gajevic, said Monday afternoon that the party’s unofficial count to that point showed “the likely possibility that our candidate would win in the first round.”

As the struggle for power intensified in Belgrade, Western governments tried to pressure Milosevic into stepping down. But Milosevic is wanted on war crimes charges by the United Nations tribunal at The Hague, and that isn’t the only threat he has to weigh in deciding his next move.

Kostunica has already said he would not hand over Milosevic to The Hague, or conduct any “witch hunts,” if Milosevic stepped down. But Milosevic also must worry about what would happen to some of his closest cronies--and his own son--if Serbia’s powerful criminal mafia decided to take advantage of a power vacuum and settle a few scores.

British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who claimed in London on Monday that Milosevic had “lost in every polling station,” told reporters: “Today Milosevic is a beaten, broken-backed president. We know he was preparing to rig the results. But the scale of this defeat is too great for even him to fix.”

As the Yugoslav political rivals argued their claims to the presidency at news conferences, officials on the Federal Electoral Commission refused to tell reporters why pro-Milosevic members of the body were in the parliament building Monday, just hours after police ejected the two opposition members.

The commission is headed by Borivoje Vukicevic, a Milosevic loyalist and head of the country’s highest appeals court.

The commission abruptly stopped checking ballots about 3 a.m. Monday, when Serbian police kicked out the opposition’s two permanent board members and even officials from the ultranationalist Radical Party.

Police were said to have broken up the meeting when Radical Party members objected to the counting of ballots cast by police officers on duty outside their home districts. Milosevic loyalists who dominate the commission said they were tired and wanted to go home. When the opposition and Radical Party commissioners objected, Milosevic supporters called in the police and had them removed. The doors were then locked.

The commission didn’t officially reconvene Monday and didn’t explain why--which amounted to the suspension of the body responsible for deciding who won an election marred by widespread accusations of tampering, intimidation and fraud.

The only formal word from the commission came Monday evening when it said no more meetings had been scheduled because election commissioners had to attend a reception for 250 foreign monitors who had been carefully screened by Milosevic’s government to observe Sunday’s vote.

Kostunica, a former law professor specializing in the constitution, was asked in a news conference at his headquarters Monday whether he considered himself president. He replied: “Yes, based on the data that you’ve heard today.”

Milosevic’s Socialist Party claimed it also had won an “absolute majority” in parliament in Sunday’s vote. But in a surprise admission, it said Milosevic and his allies would lose control of some municipalities to the opposition.

In the past, Milosevic has ceded power in towns and cities as a way of buying off the opposition. But Kostunica isn’t tainted by the corruption that discredited the opposition before it united behind him earlier this year.