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Serbian presidential candidates prepare for runoff on Feb. 3

An ultranationalist leader goes into Serbia's closely contested presidential runoff next month with a slight edge after scoring a small lead in the first-round vote, results released yesterday showed.

The state electoral commission said that Radical Party leader Tomislav Nikolic won 39 percent of Sunday's vote, while pro-Western incumbent Boris Tadic had 35 percent, forcing the two into a Feb. 3 runoff.

Placing third was populist Velimir Ilic with about 7 percent, followed by Socialist Party official Milutin Mrkonjic with about 6 percent. The anti-Western policies of those two candidates are much closer to Nikolic's, and a majority of their votes are likely to go to the hard-liner in the runoff, analysts say.

But, Tadic could count on the votes that went to liberal leader Cedomir Jovanovic, who placed fifth with about 5 percent.

Marko Blagojevic of Belgrade's Center for Free Elections and Democracy, an independent vote monitoring group, said the runoff would go down to the wire.

"One thing is certain: This will be the tightest election ever in Serbia and the winner won't be known until the last second," Blagojevic said.

The vote could determine whether Serbia will move closer to the EU or sink back into isolation similar to that of the 1990s era of autocrat Slobodan Milosevic. The former Yugoslav president died in 2006 before his genocide trial at a UN war crimes tribunal could be completed.

The pro-Russian Nikolic has sought to evoke Serbs' nationalist pride and has played on the growing frustration over US and EU backing for independence for Kosovo. A Milosevic ally, Nikolic ruled alongside the former president in the 1990s. His return to power likely would bury Serbia's EU aspirations and instead lean Serbia more toward Russia.

"Nikolic and Tadic have different policies regarding Europe, therefore the runoff will actually be a popular referendum on whether the country wants to join the European Union or not," said Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic, who is a member of Tadic's Democratic Party.

Looming over the vote is the expected declaration of independence next month by separatist Kosovo, Serbia's medieval heartland, which is now dominated by pro-independence ethnic Albanians.

Both Tadic and Nikolic reject independence for Kosovo, but Nikolic -- unlike the current president -- has promised tough measures against countries that recognize Kosovo's statehood.

The state electoral commission said that 61 percent of Serbia's 6.7 million eligible voters had cast ballots -- the largest turnout since 2000, when Milosevic lost power, and more than in 2004, when Nikolic edged ahead of Tadic in the first round but lost in a runoff.

The runoff next month will also depend on which of the two front-runners gets the backing of Serbia's conservative prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, who had supported the third-place Ilic in the first round, analysts say.

Kostunica's political views are closer to Nikolic's, but his premiership depends on Tadic's Democrats within their coalition government.

"Kostunica will be choosing Serbia's next president," former Serbian foreign minister Goran Svilanovic said. "Whoever he chooses will be the winner in the runoff."
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