Posted on 10/14/2002 1:52:02 PM PDT by Whitebread
Kostunica Vows to Bring Down Serbia
By DUSAN STOJANOVIC
14:15 ET
AP Online
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) - Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica vowed Monday to bring down Serbia's pro-Western government, a day after he failed to be elected president of the republic because of a voter boycott.
Kostunica, a moderate nationalist, won 67 percent of the vote in Sunday's election, more than twice as much as Miroljub Labus, a pro-Western deputy prime minister and an ally of Kostunica's main rival, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.
But the runoff election failed because turnout was 45.5 percent, falling short of the required 50 percent. Serbs will now have to vote again by Dec. 5, and the new election will be open to all candidates, including ultranationalist allies of former President Slobodan Milosevic, who is now on trial for war crimes.
Kostunica accused Djindjic of leading a "quiet boycott" of the elections "in order to stay in power."
During the elections, Kostunica vowed to topple Djindjic's government by calling new parliamentary elections next year if he becomes the Serbian president.
Constant bickering between Kostunica and Djindjic since they jointly ousted Milosevic in 2000 has slowed the pace of change in Serbia, impoverished by more than a decade of the former autocrat's rule.
"I want to see the end of Djindjic's regime," Kostunica said. "The political crisis has deepened."
Djindjic's Democratic Party responded by saying Kostunica should resign as Yugoslav president because he failed to be elected in the dominant Yugoslav republic.
"Kostunica campaigned by declaring that the elections will represent a popular referendum on the fate of the Serbian government and Djindjic," the party said. "Since the referendum failed, if Kostunica has morals, he would resign."
Djindjic, as prime minister, has more power than Kostunica. But Kostunica is far more popular because of his nationalist views, and his party is likely to get more votes in the eventual Serbian parliamentary elections that are likely to be held early next year. With a majority in the parliament, Kostunica's deputies can vote Djindjic's government out of power.
Zoran Stojiljkovic, a political analyst, said Djindjic stood to lose the current power struggle.
"Djindjic cannot remain in his post under any circumstance," Stojiljkovic said.
A repeat of the presidential election will give another chance at the presidency to Vojislav Seselj, an ultranationalist leader who had Milosevic's backing in the first round of voting on Sept. 29. Seselj finished third in that round and called for a boycott of the second.
On Monday, Seselj declared he felt like "a winner" because the elections failed. He vowed to hold talks with other Milosevic allies on a joint candidate for the next presidential vote.
Kostunica said that before another vote is held, new election laws should be adopted. International observers monitoring Sunday's vote agreed.
The monitors, from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, suggested that the 50-percent turnout requirement should be dropped before the next vote.
"This boycott is not understandable," said Hrair Balian, a spokesman for the OSCE monitors. "The boycott was totally self-defeating for Serbia because it produced uncertainty. Serbia does not need uncertainty - it needs reforms."
Elsewhere in Europe, voter turnout in elections this year was greater, including Sweden's 79 percent and Latvia's 73 percent. Bosnia's election had 55-percent turnout.
In the United States, voter turnout in the 2000 presidential election was approximately 51 percent.
The law mandating at least 50-percent voter turnout was imposed by Milosevic in 1997 as a way to manipulate election results and invalidate a possible victory by one of his political opponents who was seeking office at the time. The law was never repealed. Serbs had plenty of reasons to boycott the vote: Many had hoped for a faster improvement in living standards after Milosevic.
Although average salaries have gone up, they have barely kept pace with soaring prices, despite the relative stability of the national currency, the dinar. Unemployment stands at a staggering 40 percent.
Zoran Sami, deputy president of Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia, said they filed a complaint to the State Electoral Commission. If the complaint is rejected, he said, they will appeal to high courts, adding that as long as the legal procedure is in place, no new elections can be called.
"For us, these elections were successfully completed and there will be no new elections," Sami told reporters. "We will use all legal means to prove that."
"If the U.S. took two months to determine who is its president, so can Serbia," Sami said, referring to the legal battle between George Bush and Al Gore after the 2000 U.S. presidential elections.
hmmmm........No doubt on Oct 4/5 2000 this very same DOS party official was braying for blood egging the people on with hysterical misinformation...........now he is suddenly preaching calm and reservation.
Oct 2002 - Some 120,000 'extra' voters discovered on electoral rolls in Belgrade, a region which has been controled since at least 1997 by anti-SPS (ie DOS) parties
Oct 2000 - The DOS Presidential Candidate (Kostunica) wins election by 10,000 votes, key to Kostunica's election was the overwhelming number of votes cast in the Belgrade region
TamoDaleko's conclusion - therefore, the SPS is guilty of vote tampering
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If you'd bother to do some statistical checks on the 12 year history of Serbian elections you'd see that SPS-SRS support has been pretty consistent at some 1.3mm votes both before and after Oct 2000, so your charge that the Electoral Commission committed fraud prior to DOS coming to power is statistically unsound, however what did change was a dramatic increase in anti-SPS votes, espcially in Oct 2000..........
Belgrade has been a long standing anti-SPS region for quite some time........it is therefore safe to infer that the 120,000 fraudulant voters registered on the Belgrade rolls voted for anti-SPS candidates in Oct 2000.......
your charges of SPS voter fraud seem to be based on the premise "all my friends are anti-SPS, therefore everyone MUST be anti-SPS"
I think Banat's observation that -- exclusing Kosovo -- Serbia has only just over 7 million people, it is unreasonable to claim 6.5 million registered voters (that would be about 90% of the population!). Counting Albanians as "registered voters" is ridiculous. They have foresaken their right to vote by boycotts.
Now we are looking at an enigma as to how many voters could vote to begin with, and then there are some 120,000 non-existent voters in Belgrade, and so on. I think DSS has a legal basis for inquiry.
Tamodaleko, you are perpetuating a popular but unreasonable and naive myth that only Socialist bogeyman, Miloshevich, was cpabale of fraud and that -- by extension -- he is responsable or even guilty for everything that went wrong.
As for Djindjich being "Miloshevich's minnie me," he certainly seems to like controlling the media as much as his "bigger me."
The prevailing mindset in the Balkans is that the government is there to "rule," not to serve. That transcends the left as well as the right, and everyone inbetween.
IN a related story, B-92 quotes Koshtunitsa as saying:
I doubt that because I doubt Djindjich and his collaborationist DOS scum are capable of shame.
Koshtunitsa also implied that the responsability for incomplete voter lists is indirectly the fault of the Serbian Government. However, B-92 reports that DOS leadership tonight accused Koshtunitsa's party of being directly responsable for them:
Whatever happens, the honeymoon is over. Djindjich is more and more likened to Miloshevich, and DOS is ever more assuming the role of the immutable depsot.
ain't that what conservatives say about the pols in washington ?
And, in case you didn't read that far back in your history book, the Tito/Kardelj team was on top of the ladder from 1945 to 1980, and his anti-Serb cronies until 1987.
For instance, the Bujan Conference, has nothing to do with the problems in Kosovo? It's all Serb doing, isn't it? Who, I ask you, who the promised Kosovo to Albanians? Ha? Who, Tamodaleko? The Serbs? They must have done it all wrong, didn't they?
And the list goes on...all this is just Serb doing as far as you are concerned, no one has done anything to hurt the dumb Serbs, no one. No, it all started with Miloshevich and everything that happened was all Serb fault, isn't it Tamodaleko? You have some gall my friend, some gall...
I know this may be difficult for you to grasp, but the history of Serbia didn't start in 1987. Even more taxing is the fact that there is something called cause and effect.
Btw, the popular myth that you are perpetuating that everyone else but Serbs are guilty for everything that went wrong to Serbs and Serbia is more naive
You must be doing some extreme selective reading. I would say that of all the freepers who indentify as Serbs, I probably top the list of those who have condemned Serb follies the most.
You have been watching too much Star Wars stuff. The world is not all balck and white, alhtough that's how many would like it to be; it's easier to comprehend that way.
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