TADIC RE-ELECTED SERBIA PRESIDENT

PanARMENIAN.Net
04.02.2008 14:12 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Serbia’s pro-Western President Boris Tadic has
won re-election in a contest with nationalist Tomislav Nikolic,
but his narrow victory may only have set up a fresh struggle over
the country’s future course.

Analysts say it puts the survival of Serbia’s ruling coalition
in question as it braces for the secession of Kosovo, the
Albanian-dominated province, which has Western backing for a
declaration of independence in the next few weeks.

Tadic won Sunday’s presidential election by 50.5 percent to around
47.8 percent, according to a partial count by the state electoral
commission, which reported many spoiled ballots. Tadic enjoys support
of Belgrade and other major cities while his opponent is backed
by provinces.

"Serbia has shown its great democratic potential," Tadic said, in
his victory speech, praising Nikolic for "the number of votes he
has won." "This is Serbia’s victory. I think we have proven both to
Europe and everywhere else in the world what kind of democracy we
have in Serbia."

In a 2004 presidential race, Tadic beat Nikolic easily by some 9
percentage points, in what the West saw as a welcome sign that the
reactionary nationalism which fuelled war in the 1990s over the
breakup of Yugoslavia was steadily weakening, Reuters reports.