Democracy in Yugoslavia: Milosevic´s Final Defeat - Page 2
© Peter Weber
To everybody´s great surprise, however, the people of Serbia used the opportunity to evidence that they had definitely enough of the man who had led them in four disastrous wars in ten years, losing more than half of the territory and population of the former Federation. Most opposition leaders boosted the new hopes joining forces in an 18-party alliance, whose candidate to the presidency, the moderately nationalist law professor Vojislav Kostunica, 56, was soon leading in polls. The only opposition leader trying to run on his own was Vuk Draskovic, who later admitted his fault. In the elections Draskovic´s Serbian Renewal Movement was thrashed, as well as Vojislav Seselj´s Ultra-Nationalist Radicals, a former ally of Milosevic´s.
The coalition backing Kostunica was held together by Zoran Djindjic, leader of the Democratic Party, who organized the candidate´s campaign. A special obstacle for the Serbian opposition was the fact that most political forces in Montenegro and Kosovo had called for a boycott of the elections, so their victory in Serbia had to be even clearer. In the beginning most western observers therefore believed that the opposition would be unable to win, but soon Kostunica´s campaign turned out to become formidable challenge.
Milosevic then tried to use his repression forces as well as massive fraud to regain the lead, but in vain. Though voters in Montenegro and Kosovo mainly turned out, as expected, for Milosevic, his hopes were dashed by the challenger. According to the official results, on 24th September Kostunica reached some 49% of consensus against Milosevic´s 38,6%.
The real outcome must have been even worse, since the election commission, appointed by no one else but himself, had come under heavy pressure from Milosevic, who had probably ordered the necessary “adjustments” in order to avoid a first-round knockout and reach a run-off poll in October.
Kostunica´s supporters sustained instead that their favorite had won an outright victory in the first round with at least 54% of votes (against Milosevic´s 34%). Kostunica therefore declared that he would boycott the ballot with his opponent. As the positions did not meet, the political process reached a dangerous stall with uncertainty lasting over a week. Against Milosevic´s usual tricks based upon the misuse of his constitutional powers, Djindjic´s winning coalition tried to mobilize the streets, asking for an economic and administrative standstill. A general strike was proclaimed and thousands of people started marching upon Belgrade, shouting slogans like “It´s over” and singing “Slobodan, Slobodan, save Serbia and kill yourself!”.
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