Serb Nationalists Lead In Vote

An extreme nationalist party allied to indicted war criminal Slobodan Milosevic won Serbia's parliamentary elections Sunday but failed to get the majority needed to govern, exit polls show.

Milosevic and three other war crimes suspects were candidates, but no immediate decision was likely on whether they would get seats. The election's outcome is crucial for the stability of the Serb republic and the entire Balkans, still recovering from four wars fomented by Milosevic and his loyalists in the 1990s.

The Serbian Radical party won 27 percent, said the independent Center For Free Elections and Democracy, whose exit polls have been highly accurate in the past. The moderate nationalist Democratic Party of Serbia came second with 17 percent, while the governing pro-Western Democratic Party was third with about 13 percent.

The moderate nationalists have previously ruled out a coalition with the Serbian Radical Party. That would enable the pro-democratic parties that toppled Milosevic in 2000 and extradited him to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in 2001 to form a coalition government — if they put their bickering aside.

"The official (election) results may differ slightly, but the general trend will remain," said Zoran Lucic of the Center For Free Elections.

Voters were choosing between ultranationalists and the pro-democracy parties that ousted Milosevic in 2000 but failed to fulfill expectations. Turnout was about 60 percent, the highest since parliamentary elections that defeated Milosevic's Socialists three years ago, when 70 percent voted.

Milosevic's Socialists came in sixth and with not enough support to boost the Radicals into governing, according to the exit polls. But the strength of the Radicals — who advocate expanding Serbia's borders and once considered Saddam Hussein a key international ally — is likely to nudge Serbia into deeper social and economic chaos and potentially destabilize the region.

The Radicals openly call for a "Greater Serbia" at the expense of the republic's Balkan neighbors and have pledged to cut diplomatic ties with Serbia's main wartime rival, Croatia. They also vow not to extradite the U.N. war crimes tribunal's most-wanted fugitives — former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his wartime military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic.

Both Milosevic and ultranationalist ally Vojislav Seselj of the Serbian Radical Party were candidates, despite being held for trial by the U.N. war crimes detention unit in The Hague, Netherlands. Two other indicted war crimes suspects from other parties were also on the ballot.

A quick decision was not likely on whether any would get a seat. Each party fielded 250 names — one for each seat in parliament — but will not assign specific candidates to the legislature until it knows how many places it has won.

The Radical Party had benefited from scandals and infighting among the pro-democrats and the outgoing government's failure to radically improve living standards.

But with the nationalists not winning enough to govern outright, the democratic groups — all part of the former anti-Milosevic bloc that toppled and extradited him to The Hague-based U.N. tribunal — could join in the government and sideline the Radicals but only if they can reconcile their differences.

Key to that cooperation is the Democratic Party of Serbia led by Vojislav Kostunica, who succeeded Milosevic as president of Yugoslavia, Serbia-Montenegro's predecessor.