Yugoslav Panel Orders Runoff for Presidency

Denying the opposition’s claim to victory over Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, the state-controlled Federal Electoral Commission on Tuesday said a runoff election must be held because no presidential candidate won an outright majority.

But opposition candidate Vojislav Kostunica, who has declared himself president-elect based on counts at poll stations that gave him more than 50% of the vote in Sunday’s balloting, said his 18-party coalition will boycott the runoff tentatively scheduled for Oct. 8.

Calling the Federal Electoral Commission’s statement “so unserious that it hardly merits a serious comment,” Kostunica termed the runoff “an offer that can and has to be rejected--even more because it is insulting for all citizens of this country.”

“It is a political swindle, an obvious stealing of votes” to force a runoff election, Kostunica said in a signed statement released Tuesday night. He accused Milosevic of “trying to buy time in order to cause disorder among citizens in that period and quarrels in the ranks of parties of the democratic opposition.”

The commission, which is dominated by Milosevic loyalists, said its preliminary results showed Kostunica in the lead but short of the required majority.

With the ballots counted from all but 347 of the country’s 10,500 polling stations, Kostunica received 48.22% of the votes to Milosevic’s 40.23%, the commission reported in a statement read on state-run television.

Before the commission’s announcement, the coalition backing Kostunica said he was leading with 55% to Milosevic’s 35% after more than 97% of the ballots were counted. The figures are based on official counts at polling stations, which were submitted for certification to the electoral commission in Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia and of the larger of its two republics, Serbia.

The opposition demanded to see proof backing up the figures released by the electoral commission. On Monday, opposition members were kicked off the commission and out of the parliament building, where ballot counts were being certified.

Zoran Djindjic, Kostunica’s campaign manager, told reporters, “We don’t believe that they have evidence.” The commission was floating a “trial balloon” for Milosevic to test people’s reaction, he said.

Djindjic confirmed in an earlier interview that representatives of the Yugoslav president had contacted the opposition to try to negotiate a deal for a second-round ballot. But the opposition rejected the offer, insisting that it is only willing to talk about “a peaceful transition, preventing revenge and [guaranteeing] the personal safety” of Milosevic, Djindjic said.

“I think the issue here is a big swindle and falsification of results,” Djindjic said. “We knew their intentions because for the past two days they were trying to cook up something to get Milosevic in the second round at least.”

Said Kostunica: “The truth is obvious, and we will defend it with all nonviolent means.”

In Washington, President Clinton urged Milosevic, who has been in power for 13 years, to accept the will of the people. Clinton said the United States and its allies are prepared to lift economic sanctions on Serbia if Milosevic steps down.

As a result of Sunday’s vote, the Yugoslav president “has lost the last vestige of legitimacy,” Clinton said in remarks at Georgetown University.

“I do not underestimate Mr. Milosevic’s desire to cling to power at the expense of the people. I have witnessed it, lived with it and responded to it firsthand,” Clinton said.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the opposition has “won a sweeping endorsement at all levels from the Serb people.”

“Under Milosevic, there is nowhere Yugoslavia can go,” Albright said. “Under democratic leadership, there is no limit to what the Yugoslav people can accomplish.”

To help keep the pressure on Milosevic, opposition leaders plan a rally tonight in Belgrade.

The opposition is also quietly chipping at the cracks that have formed in Milosevic’s regime, hoping that some key supporters will defect and help bring the president down.

Onetime Milosevic backers, such as former top army commander Vuk Obradovic, are speaking behind the scenes with some of Milosevic’s most important backers in the military, police and ruling coalition, trying to persuade them to support Kostunica as president-elect, Obradovic confirmed in an interview Tuesday.

“Many people around Milosevic are thinking of switching sides and saving themselves,” Obradovic said in Belgrade. “It is especially happening at the middle and lower levels of the ruling parties’ organizations. The flight of rats from the sinking ship has already started.

“The people from the regime are knocking on our doors more and more often,” Obradovic said, adding that he could not mention names. “These cases are now happening every day--so far, only from the middle level. From the highest levels, we are getting only some indirect messages.”

Obradovic was close to Milosevic before the Yugoslav leader suddenly fired him in 1992. The military’s current chief of staff, Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic, was Obradovic’s deputy for 13 months in the late 1980s.

“Anything can be expected from Pavkovic, although I wouldn’t rule out” that he defects, Obradovic said. “If he is clever, he would do that. But I also wouldn’t rule out that Pavkovic remains loyal to Milosevic all the way to the end.”

The military has been crucial in propping up Milosevic’s regime.

Dozens of high-ranking officials have either deserted Milosevic or been dismissed during the past decade and been replaced by more compliant people. Milosevic’s critics say that has left him surrounded by yes men and out of touch with the reality of just how far he has fallen in the estimation of his own people.

“We are dealing here with people whose behavior cannot be rationally judged,” Obradovic said of Milosevic and his key backers. “They live in a surreal world. They are not standing on the Earth with both feet.”

The most recent defection from Milosevic’s inner circle was Zoran Lilic, an ex-president of Yugoslavia and former deputy leader of Milosevic’s Socialist Party. Lilic quit the party and government in August without publicly making it clear why he left.

The opposition, which is trying to persuade Milosevic loyalists to quit the regime and join Kostunica’s camp, does not plan to bring them into a shadow government led by their candidate, Serbian analyst Bratislav Grubacic said.

Instead, the opposition hopes to so isolate Milosevic that the Yugoslav president feels compelled to step down, Grubacic said in a phone interview from Belgrade.

“If he estimates that he cannot order the police and the army to launch violent actions against the people, or that they will not follow his orders and the demonstrations will be very messy, then he will try to compromise with the opposition,” said Grubacic, editor of Belgrade’s VIP Daily News Report.

Although Milosevic--who has been indicted on war crimes charges by an international tribunal--can be brutal toward his enemies, the Yugoslav leader has always depended on constitutional formalities to provide official cover for his autocratic rule.

“Milosevic was never a proper dictator who launched states of emergency so easily,” Grubacic said. “He was more of a ‘semi-dictator,’ always trying to have a semi-legal basis for what he was doing. He is a person who never wants to compromise, except in a situation where he is completely trapped in a corner.”

Milosevic tries to buy time in a crisis, but this time delaying tactics aren’t working because more ordinary people accept the opposition’s claim of victory, Grubacic said.

“We have permanent contacts with people in the army and police and in the Serbian Socialist Party,” said Djindjic, the opposition campaign manager. “Milosevic is completely alone in his desire to rape the reality of the people’s will. He is completely alone except for a few extremists.”

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Times staff writer Esther Schrader in Washington contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

PROFILE

Slobodan Milosevic

*

Born

Aug. 20, 1941, in Pozarevac, an industrial city in central Serbia.

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Parents

Svetozar, a Serbian Orthodox priest, and Stanislava, a teacher and Communist Party activist. Both committed suicide in Milosevic’s youth.

*

Family

Married to neo-Communist leader Mirjana Markovic; two children, daughter Marija, 35, who runs a radio and television station, and son Marko, 26, a disco owner and race car enthusiast with rumored ties to the underworld.

*

CHRONOLOGY OF NATIONALISM

Since Slobodan Milosevic came to power in 1987, his virulent strain of Serbian nationalism has largely been blamed for the breakup of the Yugoslav federation, which once comprised Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Montenegro and Serbia, which includes the contentious province of Kosovo. Only Serbia and Montenegro remain in Yugoslavia. Here are some of the milestones of Milosevic’s tenure:

*

1987

* April

Milosevic propels himself to the political forefront with a fiery speech that asserts the claims of a Greater Serbia. He later becomes leader of the Serbian Communist Party and wrests power from his lifelong friend and mentor, Serbian President Ivan Stambolic.

*

1989

* November

Milosevic elected president of Serbia.

*

1991

* June

Slovenia and Croatia proclaim independence. Yugoslav tanks try but fail to crush Slovenian independence. Macedonia’s break, in September, is relatively peaceful. But fierce fighting begins in Croatia between Croats and ethnic Serbs.

* December

European Community agrees to recognize any Yugoslav republic

that meets conditions on human rights, democracy and ethnic minorities.

*

1992

* February-March

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the most ethnically mixed Yugoslav republic, Muslims and Croats vote for independence in a referendum boycotted by Serbs.

* April

War breaks out between Bosnian government and local Serbs, who lay siege to the capital, Sarajevo.

* May

U.N. sanctions are slapped on Serbia for backing rebel Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia.

*

1993

* January

Bosnian peace efforts fail; war breaks out between Muslims and Croats, previously allies against Serbs.

*

1995

* November

After North Atlantic Treaty Organization airstrikes against Bosnian Serbs, Milosevic joins presidents of Bosnia and Croatia in reaching a peace agreement at U.S.-sponsored talks in Dayton, Ohio.

*

1996

* February

The Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA, emerges, claiming responsibility for terrorist attacks.

*

1997

* July

Milosevic sworn in as Yugoslav president, stepping down as Serbia’s leader after serving two terms.

* October

Reformist Milo Djukanovic wins presidency of Montenegro, defeating a Milosevic ally.

*

1998

* February

The Yugoslav army launches a bloody crackdown on KLA separatists in Kosovo.

*

* September

NATO issues an ultimatum to Milosevic to stop violence in Kosovo or face airstrikes.

*

1999

* March

Kosovo peace talks in France end in failure. NATO warplanes begin an air campaign against military targets throughout Yugoslavia. Yugoslav forces begin herding hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians out of the province.

* May

U.N. war crimes tribunal confirms that it has indicted Milosevic as a war criminal.

* June

After a 78-day NATO air war, Serbian forces start withdrawing from Kosovo. U.N. Security Council calls for “substantial autonomy” for the province, and NATO-led peacekeepers arrive.

*

2000

* September

Huge turnout reported for Yugoslav elections. Opponents of Milosevic claim victory, but electoral panel calls for runoff.