Serbia's Voters Fail a Second Time to Elect President

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, December 09, 2002

Serbia's Voters Fail a Second Time to Elect President

Serbian presidential elections failed Sunday for a second time because of low turnout, independent observers say.

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Serbian presidential elections failed Sunday for a second time because of low turnout, independent observers say.

The Center for Free Elections and Democracy, an independent group of observers, said turnout was around 45%, about the same as when the vote failed in October because of the required 50% voter turnout.

"We can definitely say" that the elections failed, said Zoran Lucic, a spokesman for the group.

It was unclear what would happen if officials declared Sunday's vote invalid �� The Serbian constitution has no provisions regarding the repeated failure of the vote. But a failure would likely fuel the political feud between Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica and his top rival, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.

Kostunica won the most votes in the October vote, and pre-election surveys had him comfortably leading Sunday's race, analysts said many voters had stayed home amid widespread apathy and freezing temperatures.

The failure of the ballot would be a serious political setback for Kostunica, who in 2000 led the popular movement that toppled Slobodan Milosevic, the autocratic Yugoslav ex-president now on trial for war crimes before the U.N. tribunal at The Hague, Netherlands.

Kostunica, a moderate nationalist with pro-democratic views who advocates cautious reforms, faced two extremists: Vojislav Seselj of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party �� an ally of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein; and Borislav Pelevic of the Serbian Unity Party, founded by late Serb warlord Zeljko Raznatovic, better known as Arkan.

Complete unofficial results were expected later Sunday.

Source: Agencies

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