Word: kostunica
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Slobodan Milosevic admits he lost Yugoslavia's presidential election, but not the full extent of his defeat - and that sets the stage for a dramatic showdown with an opposition ready to take to the streets to claim its victory. Preliminary official results announced Tuesday put opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica eight points ahead of the Serb strongman, but deny him the 50 percent margin required to claim first-round victory. Opposition leaders scoff at the figures released by Milosevic's electoral commission, confidently claiming that independent officials monitoring the count at local ballot stations confirm that Kostunica won 55 percent...
...declare an emergency and call of any further elections. But his acknowledgement of defeat could also be a prelude to a new survival strategy, in which Milosevic cedes the presidency but uses his majority in the federal parliament and his power base inside Serbia to hamstring a Kostunica government...
...that have kept the Serb strongman in power begin trying to secure their own positions in a post-Milosevic Yugoslavia. Already the rabid nationalists of Vojislav Seselj's Radical Party - once the most bellicose backers of Milosevic's military misadventures of the past decade - have jumped ship, proclaiming a Kostunica victory and urging that it be respected. Kostunica is no NATO shill - he even suggested the Western alliance may have committed war crimes during last year's bombing campaign during the Kosovo crisis - and it's far from inconceivable that the military would be comfortable with him in the presidency...
...from what the opposition has said so far, they won't accept it. They're planning a massive rally for Wednesday, to claim their first-round victory. And if they remain united and firm, Milosevic could still instruct his electoral officials to produce a final result that reflects Kostunica's first-round victory...
...course there'll be plenty of negotiation in the weeks that lie ahead. Even if Kostunica becomes president, Milosevic still controls the majority faction in parliament, and the opposition won't be able to form a government without his approval. He may in fact still be the most powerful politician in Serbia. But still, the psychological bridge he's crossed shouldn't be underestimated. From now on, what Serbia is facing is a political battle, not a physical...