Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has called for a run-off election after his defeat at last weekend’s election by Opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica. The election commission reported that Mr Milosevic got 40.23 per cent and Professor Kostunica 48.22 per cent. In most presidential elections in Europe it is normal to have a run-off election between the two leading candidates if no candidate gets 50 per cent of the vote. However, in most normal European elections there are neutral electoral commissions which count the vote with comprehensive scrutinteering processes by all parties which take part in the election. There was no such thing in Yugoslavia. It seems apparent to most observers that Professor Kostunica won the election quite easily, despite Mr Milosevic’s tactics of intimidation, denial of freedom of communication and his fatuous show trials of western leaders for “”war crimes” committed during the NATO bombing campaign that followed Mr Milosevic’s brutal suppression of the people of the province of Kosovo. The show trials were a misguided attempt to play on ignorant people’s nationalism. It failed. The people have seen through the tactic and want their nation rid of Mr Milosevic.
Mr Milosevic’s call for a run-off election on October 8 is an obvious and unacceptable ploy to thwart the democratic process and to deny the people of Serbia their choice of government. Professor Kostunica was quite right to reject it. It would have given Mr Milosevic more time to rig the result. It is apparent that Mr Milosevic was sufficiently self-deluded to believe that he would be re-elected. He must have been surprised at the result. The electoral commission has stated that only 65 per cent of people turned up. Polling suggests that it was more like 75 per cent. And polling also suggested that the Opposition would get more than 50 per cent of the vote. Clearly Mr Milosevic has spirited away quite a lot of the vote. The commission has refused to be properly scrutinised.
Professor Kostunica has played his cards very well. He has urged calm and for his supporters to do everything short of violence to ensure Mr Milosevic stands down. He has also pledged that the will of the people should not be trampled on. There was no moral or political reason by which he would accept trampling on the electoral will of the citizens. This is a powerful call because those in the police, army and security forces who prop Mr Milosevic up could well heed it because of the precedent in so many other Eastern European countries in the past 11 years. Moreover, Mr Milosevic himself might well look to one of those countries, Romania, when he contemplates what he should do. In the past few nights up to 40,000 people has flocked into central Belgrade, just as thousands poured into the centre of Bucharest when President Nicolae Ceausescu refused to step down, forcing him to flee on to be caught and executed. A UN prison cell might be a better prospect.
However, Mr Milosevic cornered is a dangerous man. He is perfectly capable of unleashing an attack on unarmed civilians. He is capable of finding an excuse to invade tiny mountainous Montenegro, the only province other than Mr Milosevic’s Serbia that remains in the Yugoslav federation. He would then declare an emergency to stay in power.
Present events will test world will. It is essential that the people’s will to tip out Mr Milosevic be respected and effected. Western nations should make it quite plain the game is up for Mr Milosevic and his henchmen and there will not be a repeat of the procrastination and half-hearted responses that have marked Mr Milosevic’s previous outrages against his own people. It is time for the people of Serbia to join the family of democratic nations of Europe, for the final dissolution of Yugoslavia and formal independence for Montenegro.