Serbian election invalidated after low voter turnout

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Serbia headed for a major political crisis after it failed a second time to elect a president, with supporters of the top vote-getter vowing on Monday to challenge the outcome.\nYugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica claimed he was robbed of victory because of irregular voter lists.\nHis backers said they would mount an appeal.\n"We will not give up on the truth," Kostunica aide Dragan Marsicanin said Monday. "Those responsible for the election robbery will be held accountable sooner or later."\nSunday's vote was invalid because some 44 percent of the electorate cast ballots -- short of the 50 percent minimum turnout required by the election law, according to the State Electoral Commission and independent observers.\nThe inconclusive outcome drew criticism from international groups who sent observers to the election.\n"We are very concerned about the negative consequences this unresolved impasse could have for the future of Serbia's reform process," said Thomas M. Cox, of the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly.\nThe result dealt Kostunica a serious blow, indicating that the once overwhelming popular support he enjoyed when he toppled Milosevic in 2000 has shrunk.\nThe uncertainty at the polls also set the stage for a showdown between Kostunica and his chief rival, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, exacerbating an ongoing power struggle between the two politicians who had teamed up to remove Milosevic but later split.\n"We are heading for a major political crisis," said political analyst Milan Milosevic.\nKostunica's camp claimed "scandalous rigging" of the election results by the state electoral commission and the independent observers. Kostunica also blamed Djindjic and the Serbian parliament.\nHis supporters vowed to appeal the results to the Serbian Supreme Court and international institutions, although Kostunica's challenge to the October election results was unsuccessful.\nKostunica, a moderate nationalist with pro-democratic views who advocates cautious reforms, faced two extremists: Vojislav Seselj of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party and Borislav Pelevic of the Serbian Unity Party, founded by late Serb warlord Zeljko Raznatovic, better known as Arkan.\nExit polls showed that Kostunica won 58 percent of the votes, Seselj won 36 percent, while Pelevic had 3.4 percent, election monitors said.\nWhile existing law bars a runoff after Sunday's vote, it was not immediately clear whether or when more elections would be held. Dragoljub Micunovic, a top politician, said the matter is not regulated by the constitution.\nKostunica has indicated he would not run again, but would try to bring down Djindjic's government in the Serbian parliament, thus provoking nationwide general elections. To achieve that, Kostunica would have to forge an alliance with Milosevic's loyalists in the assembly.\nKostunica's current post is to be eliminated as part of a reform of present-day rump Yugoslavia, which is to turn into a loose union of the remaining republics, Serbia and Montenegro, with the same name.\nKostunica had hoped to win the Serbian presidency to counter Djindjic's grip on power in the republic. Djindjic, however, has hinted he wants to change the election law, and install an ally of his own as president by changing the law to allow presidential elections by parliament.\nSlow economic and social reforms, scandals and perpetual power struggles between Kostunica and Djindjic have disillusioned Serbs, who are more concerned with their dire living standards and rampant unemployment.\nA new president was supposed to succeed Milan Milutinovic, whose term ends in January. He is likely to be replaced temporarily by Serbian parliament speaker Natasa Micic.\nMilutinovic was indicted by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, along with Milosevic for war crimes in Kosovo and likely faces extradition once his mandate expires.