Milosevic ready to defy world over poll fraud

Slobadan Milosevic dramatically raised the stakes in his showdown with the Serbian opposition and the international community yesterday, as his government rejected all but the fine print of an OSCE report denouncing his fraudulent handling of last November's municipal elections.

Despite the relentless pressure of world opinion and almost eight weeks of noisy protests on the streets, the Serbian President and his allies maintained their refusal to admit defeat in most of the country's major towns and cities.

A keenly anticipated letter to the OSCE signed by the Yugoslav foreign minister, Milan Milutinovic conceded only two points: that the opposition coalition Zajedno (Together) had won nine of Belgrade's municipal wards (but not the ruling city council), and that the results in Nis, Serbia's second city, and a handful of other municipalities, needed to be investigated further.

The letter, which reached OSCE headquarters in Vienna during a special meeting to consider the Serbian crisis, was clearly nowhere near enough to satisfy the demands of either the street protesters or foreign diplomats, and signalled a further hardening in Mr Milosevic's attitude to the outside world. The OSCE report, published last week, had called for full recognition of the opposition's victory.

The OSCE yesterday backed the findings of the report by the former Spanish prime minister Felipe Gonzalez, and called on Belgrade to fully implement its recommendations.

"Most probably Mr Milosevic has decided to reject the OSCE recommendations. If so, that means he is going to confront the whole world," said Ilija Djukic, a former Yugoslav foreign minister who is now prominent within the opposition Democratic Party.

Opposition leaders addressing supporters at their daily rally in the centre of Belgrade vowed to intensify their protests, and accused Mr Milosevic of clinging to power through lies and low trickery. "He is like a thief who steals your wallet and then tries to claim the wallet was his all along," said the Democratic Party's leader, Zoran Djindjic.

Opposition officials said they suspected Mr Milosevic was trying to strike a bargain with them, dangling the prize of Nis and other cities before them on condition they relinquish their victory in Belgrade. "Evidently, neither Milosevic nor his wife can stomach living in a town where the opposition is in charge," Mr Djukic said.

All three of Zajedno's leaders have so far rejected negotiations out of hand, saying the full recognition of their democratic rights was the prerequisite for any dialogue.

A joint statement took issue with a number of points made by Mr Milutinovic in the letter to the OSCE. It pointed out that the Supreme Court had acknowledged their victory in Nis and had unsuccessfully petitioned the local electoral commission to overturn the cancellation of the vote there. It disputed Mr Milutinovic's claim that the opposition had taken office in the northern town of Zrenjanin, saying the ruling party was refusing to hand over power to them. With every passing day, the groundswell of public opinion has risen against Mr Milosevic, spreading from the opposition and the students of Belgrade University to such bulwarks of society as the Orthodox Church, sections of the police and army and even the security police. A number of senior state officials are happy to admit their support for the opposition in private, while scores of judges, university teachers and civil servants have openly expressed their dissent.

"When the protests began, all we wanted was the recognition of our basic rights. By this point, Mr Milosevic's grip on power in Serbia is coming into question," Mr Djukic said. Where the crisis goes from here is hard to predict. Vuk Draskovic, the most volatile and populist of the opposition leaders, has promised a "surprise," both for demonstrators and police attempting to contain them, at a rally being convened at 2pm today. In reality, though, there is not much more the street protesters can do except continue to show up in large numbers with their party whistles and satirical slogans.

The demonstrations are likely to taper off in the next few days since the Orthodox Christmas falls on Tuesday and about 30 per cent of the student protesters will be going home to their families in the provinces.

The international community will have a difficult balancing act to perform, having failed to bring Mr Milosevic round. Foreign governments will be keen to keep up the economic and other pressure, but without alienating him to such an extent that he decides to ignore them altogether in favour of a siege mentality.