Serbia appeared to have failed to elect a president for the third time in three months last night, risking a crisis of political legitimacy and instability deliberately engineered by its bickering leaders.
Popular disgust with the vicious political infighting that has paralysed the government and given post-Milosevic politics in Serbia a bad name produced a partial boycott of the election.
As a bitterly cold polling day drew to a close it looked as though less than half the electorate had turned out — too few to make the ballot valid.
Less than 42% had been to the polls an hour before voting ended last night, making it highly unlikely that the 50% threshold legally required for a valid poll would be crossed.
The Yugoslav president, Vojislav Kostunica, comfortably won the first round of the election for Serbian head of state in September, and the first run-off in October, but on too small a turnout to be elected. He had been expected to romp home yesterday.
But voters seem to have stayed away in sufficient numbers to deny him the post he covets. Under the new, looser union of Serbia and Montenegro agreed on Friday, the office of Yugoslav president which he holds will expire within months.
Yesterday’s apparent low turnout will leave the presidential seat empty. It is occupied by Milan Milutinovic, a Milosevic crony and indicted war criminal who faces prosecution in the Hague when his term expires in January.
Mr Kostunica, a moderate if anti-western nationalist, beat two extremists yesterday: Vojislav Seselj, a neo-fascist who ran paramilitary squads in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia in the 1990s and is being investigated by the Hague, and Borislav Pelevic, a follower of the assassinated warlord Zeljko Raznjatovic — ”Arkan” — who commanded some of the most notorious death squads in the 1990s wars.
Mr Seselj, who took 23% of the vote in the September election, has been endorsed from his cell in the Hague by Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav and Serbian leader currently being tried for genocide by the international war crimes tribunal.
That the Serbs faced such a dismal choice of candidates can also be blamed on the prime minister, Zoran Dzindzic, who refused to put up a candidate because of his rivalry with Mr Kostunica, and discreetly supported a poll boycott.
As he cast his ballot, Mr Kostunica said: ”If this vote fails, it will not postpone early parliamentary elections. On the contrary, it would speed them up.”
But Mr Dzindzic is calculating that the presidential impasse will keep him in office for longer than he otherwise could expect.
Mr Kostunica is easily the more popular politician. If installed in the presidency, he may act quickly to dissolve parliament and call parliamentary elections which Mr Dzindzic would lose.
But Mr Dzindzic currently controls the parliament, and the longer the presidential seat is vacant, the longer he will remain prime minister.
European leaders had urged the Serb electorate to turn out yesterday.
Erhard Busek, who heads the EU’s stability pact for the Balkans, said: ”The political situation in Serbia could become more unstable if the elections are unsuccessful.” – Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001