Word: kostunica
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...prepared for this moment, and a part of him despaired of standing at the center of it. But as he stepped onto the balcony of Belgrade's city hall last Thursday night, with the parliament building smoldering nearby and thousands of supporters gathered in the darkness beneath him, Vojislav Kostunica surely felt the weight of history. He still had to say something, summon words that could calm the restive crowd in Belgrade as much as inspire them. How would he describe the revolution that had just unfolded? What could he say to assure them that after 13 years of repression...
...whole nation seemed to roar back. With that greeting, the 56-year-old former law professor did more than herald the regime's demise. He also won for the moment the hearts of the Serbian people who had given him their votes two weeks earlier. Kostunica's ability to unite the fractious Serbian opposition and defeat Slobodan Milosevic at the polls was an astonishing political feat, but even his allies wondered whether the taciturn scholar had it in him to lead a popular revolt. He did. Kostunica didn't want events to be settled in Belgrade's streets, but once...
...demand it--at the ballot box if they can, in the streets if they must. Serbs could be proud last week that they finally mustered the gumption to do that. But the lesson of people power is that it's harder the second day. Now the opposition must consolidate Kostunica's authority over those portions of the nation that remain mutinous. Reviving an economy wrecked by the vestiges of communist planning, 10 years of war, sanctions and the destructive bombs of NATO will tax the patience of Serbs burning to emerge from the Milosevic nightmare. Balkan turmoil will...
...determination to remain close to the people was disarming. "You are staying here with me," he told them Thursday night. "I'm staying here with you." On Friday night Kostunica appeared on Serbian state television and took calls from viewers, Larry King-style. He pledged that he would not move to the presidential residence, known as the White Palace, preferring to stay in his cramped Belgrade apartment. He said last week he will not serve his whole five-year term but plans to call for new parliamentary and presidential elections in 18 months, after which he will step aside...
...Kostunica, who founded his tiny Democratic Party of Serbia eight years ago, has proved to be a shrewd politician in tune with the public mood. When local opposition supporters defied police efforts to break up a miners' strike in Kolubara on Wednesday, Kostunica raced to the scene in time to rally a cheering crowd of 10,000. In public appearances throughout the week, he referred to himself as Yugoslavia's President-elect, and while he said, "I don't like the word revolution," he recognized that ordinary Serbs would determine the outcome. Even before Milosevic's concession, Kostunica established...