Opposition leader tipped to win poll

BELGRADE, SEPT. 23. After four wars, a decade of punishing sanctions, the breakup of their country and the bombing of their cities by NATO, Yugoslavs pass judgment on Sunday on Mr. Slobodan Milosevic, the man who made it all happen.

The stakes are immense in the presidential and parliamentary elections. If voters turn Mr. Milosevic out of office - and he accepts defeat, which is also a big ``if'' - this battered, dispirited country will have had a taste of real democracy, and billions of dollars in Western aid and investment may follow. If he clings to power, bloodshed is likely.

With Mr. Milosevic trailing in pre-election polls and the perception widespread that his people will cheat to win, Opposition supporters are unlikely to quietly accept any Government claim of victory. And the Yugoslav Federation, steadily diminished by the loss of four of its republics during Mr. Milosevic's decade in power, will get smaller. The pro- Western leadership in Montenegro says that unless Mr. Milosevic goes, it too will break away, leaving the 59-year-old former communist official with nothing but his native Serbia. That too could mean more violence for a Balkan region that has already suffered tens of thousands of deaths since the start of the breakup in the early '90s.

Independent election monitoring is severely curtailed, so the Opposition is urging the citizenry to gather in squares on Sunday evening and await results, which are expected to start coming in a few hours after the polls close on Sunday at 8 p.m. local time.

The Opposition apparently hopes to repeat the experience of 1996, when three months of big protests against fraud in municipal elections forced Mr. Milosevic to back down and hand over power in major cities. The election is a battle between two visions: the go-it-alone nationalism of Mr. Milosevic, appealing to ancient Balkan pride and humiliations vs the message of normalcy transmitted by Mr. Vojislav Kostunica, the mild-mannered law professor who raced to a 10-point lead over Mr. Milosevic in opinion polls. Mr. Kostunica's promise to turn Yugoslavia into ``a normal European democratic country'' is a seductive one for a nation mired in isolation from the West, watching from the sidelines while other former communist countries like Poland and Hungary set out to join a peaceful, borderless European Union. Mr. Kostunica's appeal is in his no-frills style. Where Mr. Milosevic is assertive, Mr. Kostunica is soft-spoken; where Mr. Milosevic is imperious, his rival is unassuming; when Mr. Milosevic was rising through the communist party ranks, Mr. Kostunica was fired for being an anti-communist.

Countering Mr. Milosevic's shrill denunciations of his foes as ``rats and hyenas'' in thrall to the West, Mr. Kostunica stresses his own Serbian patriotism and strongly deplores last year's NATO bombing of his country. Most important, perhaps, Mr. Kostunica is untainted by the scandals and corruption surrounding the Milosevic entourage.

His campaign poster simply reads: ``Who can look you straight in the eyes?'' This image has rallied 18 Opposition groups around him. But will it win power? Charges of cheating have dogged Mr. Milosevic in previous elections. Local and foreign-based monitoring organisations have recorded flagrant violations during Mr. Milosevic's rule, first as President of Serbia, then of Yugoslavia.

Indeed, Mr. Milosevic's switch of chairs in itself raised questions. Constitutionally barred from staying on as Serbian President, he made himself President of Yugoslavia, elected by a Parliament stacked with his supporters. Now his aides are saying that even if he loses on Sunday, he can still finish out his term, which officially ends next June.

The Opposition rejects that interpretation. The NATO bombing brought Mr. Milosevic's popularity to a new low, but the regime seems determined to survive at all costs. More than 2,500 pro- democracy campaigners have been detained in recent months. Police have severely beaten anti-Milosevic demonstrators. The Mr. Kostunica has spoken out against the indictment of Mr. Milosevic by a U.N. tribunal on war crimes charges stemming from atrocities committed against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo last year. And he promises there will be no revenge-taking under his presidency - a reassuring notion in a political and social climate where grudges are often settled by the gun.

On Kosovo, he promises to do his best for the province's Serb minority and work to repatriate those who fled in fear of Albanian vengeance. And in direct contrast to his rival, who has clung tenaciously to power, Mr. Kostunica says he will call new elections within 18 months. ``I cannot promise immediate prosperity, but I give my word that all the citizens of this country will be free and equal''. ``I give my word that I will try to change our country to the better, without letting power change me.''

But despite Mr. Kostunica's conciliatory and sensible messages, Mr. Milosevic still has many hardline supporters - an estimated 20 per cent to 30 per cent of the electorate - who are ready to follow their leader despite the decline his rule has brought to the country.

``I will vote for Mr. Milosevic because he won't sell this country to the Americans and NATO,'' says Mr. Milovan Stankovic, a 60-year-old construction worker. ``They hate him and that's why I love him.''

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Section  : International
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