Скачать или смотреть YUGOSLAVIA: ELECTION PREVIEW

(22 Dec 2000) English/Nat
XFA
There are few who hold any doubt that the pro-democracy coalition of President Vojislav Kostunica will win in the December 23 Serbian elections for the 250-seat assembly.

According to the latest polls, 71 percent of population is supporting the 18-party Democratic Opposition of Serbia.

The Socialist party of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic is supported by 13 percent of respondents.

Although pinned as the elections' major losers, Milosevic's Socialists will likely muster enough votes for Milosevic to secure a seat in the assembly and the parliamentary immunity that goes with it.

That would make it difficult for the former autocratic ruler to be prosecuted at home.

Milosevic has been indicted for war crimes in Kosovo by the international tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, but Yugoslav law prohibits extradition and Kostunica has expressed little enthusiasm for delivering Milosevic to that court.

Milosevic was forced to step down after a popular uprising on October 5, triggered by his refusal to acknowledge defeat in presidential elections.

In the country's major shift to democracy, Kostunica replaced Milosevic.

Saturday's vote is important because it gives Kostunica's forces a chance to remove the last vestiges of Milosevic's power base in Serbia.

Unlike the September 24 elections when Milosevic's regime dictated the rules and banned Western observers, the Saturday ballot is expected to be Serbia's most fair elections to date.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe will have about 335 observers.

Political representatives and public figures from more than 110 countries will be present, and two independent Yugoslav groups will also monitor the vote.

SOUNDBITE: (Serbian)
"I expect that the trend established in October will continue now, that the country will elect the people who will lead it in a modern way and who will introduce the country into the modern European and world currents."
SUPER CAPTION: Voxpop, young man

SOUNDBITE: (Serbian)
"We shall live better (if DOS wins), and we shall go forward. Serbia and Yugoslavia will in four or five years live much better than all the other neighbours."
SUPER CAPTION: Voxpop, middle-aged man

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We must say that for the first time in the last ten years, these elections are boring, which most of ordinary Serbs like very much. This was finally what Kostunica promised to most Serbs - he said what we want is a new normal boring country which will lead a normal
life."
SUPER CAPTION: Braca Grubacic, political analyst

SOUNDBITE: (Serbian)
"As much as SPS gets support to carry out its program through coming into power, and it is now certainly stronger and cleaner, I would say that I am a complete optimist about development of the future events."
SUPER CAPTION: Slobodan Milosevic, former Yugoslav president and the president of the Socialist Party of Serbia

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We must change system, we must change behaviour in economy and then attract some capital to develop our country, we don't organise rallies, we don't organise political speeches, we just talk to the usual people from Serbian economy."
SUPER CAPTION: Zoran Djindjic, DOS leader and president of Democratic Party

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"I see we have now a wide democratic front for changes and democratic opposition but not only parties but independent media, NGOs, civil society and other side are old parties, ideological parties and I don't see them as opponents, they are remains of an old
system."

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