Opposition: Clear first-round win to Kostunica

BELGRADE, Tuesday -- With 97.5 per cent of votes processed, opposition presidential candidate Vojislav Kostunica has a clear majority with 54.66 per cent of the votes cast, over Slobodan Milosevic's 35.01 per cent, the Democratic Opposition of Serbia announced today. DOS election headquarters manager Cedomir Jovanovic told media that the coalition still had 130,000 votes to process as well as votes from Kosovo and Montenegro. He said that the opposition would have 59 seats in the lower house of the Federal Parliament, with 44 seats going to the Left coalition, four to the Serbian Radical Party and one to the Serbian Renewal Movement. In the upper house the opposition would have ten seats, the Left coalition seven, the Radicals two and the Renewal movement one.

The Kosovska Mitrovica branch of the opposition coalition confirmed today that Milosevic had won the Kosovo elections in the Serbian election unit of Prokuplje. Radio Kontakt reports that more than fifty per cent had voted for Milosevic, with the Socialists claiming a figure as high as seventy per cent. DOS coordinator in Prokuplje, Milan Savic, said that only 5.3 per cent of the 372,000-strong Kosovo electorate had voted.

Opposition campaign manager Zoran Djindjic today called on Belgraders to rally in Republic Square tonight to celebrate victory in local government elections in 85 municipalities in Serbia. The Left coalition has won in about 30 municipalities.

Source: B92

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