Pro-European Tadic claims re-election as Serbian president

Feb 4, 2008, 13:05 GMT

Supporters of Serbia\'s President and presidential candidate Boris Tadic celebrate after his headquarter claimed victory in presidential elections, in Belgrade, Serbia, 03 February 2008. EPA/KOCA SULEJMANOVIC

Belgrade - Incumbent Boris Tadic won the Serbian presidential runoff Sunday, signalling that a majority in the troubled country sees its European future as more important than the fate of the estranged, breakaway Kosovo.

'I can announce that we won in these presidential elections,' Tadic told a crowd of supporters gathered outside his Democratic Party (DS) headquarters.

Tadic was leading ultra-nationalist challenger Tomislav Nikolic with 50.75 per cent to 47.56 per cent, with four-fifths of ballots counted, the central election commission said.

The private election-monitoring agency Cesid projected a 50.5 per cent to 47.9 per cent victory for Tadic, basing its figures on a sample that has been proved in nearly two dozen polls over the last eight years.

Tadic's Democratic Party already started celebrating, and columns of his supporters drove around downtown Belgrade, honking and cheering.

Traffic was diverted from central streets in Belgrade as thousands of people gathered to party.

A Roma brass band - a staple in Serb celebrations - was already summoned to the DS seat before Tadic appeared to claim victory for a second five-year term.

With his triumph, the 50-year-old psychologist, who assumed leadership over the DS after its leader, reformist Serbian premier Zoran Djindjic was assassinated in 2003, has kept a foot in the European door for Serbia.

Tadic says that Belgrade must remain on course to join the EU, even if leading Western nations back the looming secession of Kosovo, where the majority Albanians are expected to declare independence within weeks.

'We won and showed the democratic potential of Serbia,' Tadic told the crowd. 'This is not a time for much celebration but for a lot of work ... to build stability and our European vision.'

Nikolic, chief of the opposition Serbian Radical Party, the largest force in Parliament and a key part of the former regime of Slobodan Milosevic, would have pushed for a freeze of relations with the West over Kosovo.

He acknowledged the defeat, congratulated Tadic and appealed to his supporters to remain calm.

Now Tadic has more leverage on his uneasy ally in the governing coalition of conservative Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, who shares Nikolic's views of the EU and particularly NATO. Kostunica refused to back either Tadic or Nikolic before the runoff.

Now, with Tadic and DS on the rise, he faces the options of shoring up Serbia's wavering path toward EU despite the fate of Kosovo and in spite of himself, or early elections - which is the worst scenario for him amid his diminished popularity.

'His only good move would be to resign and allow a new cabinet to be elected in Parliament without early elections,' said Belgrade's former foreign minister, Goran Svilanovic.

Kostunica would have to tip his hand by Thursday, when the EU would offer Belgrade a political and economic cooperation treaty, put together last week as an incentive for pro-European voters in Serbia.