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Monitors: Turnout invalidates Serbia vote
From Slobodan Cagic
BELGRADE, Serbia (CNN) -- Serbia must hold new presidential elections after the low turnout in Sunday's runoff rendered the balloting invalid, election monitors said. The independent Center for Free Elections and Democracy estimated voter turnout at 2.9 million -- about 45.5 percent of eligible voters, short of the 50 percent Serbian law requires for a valid result. The state electoral committee was expected to make the annulment official Monday evening. Widespread apathy among voters, due in part to disappointment with the government's economic reforms, along with rainy weather led many people to stay home Sunday. In addition, observers said a boycott call by ultra-nationalist Vojislav Seselj -- an ally of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic -- may have contributed to the low turnout. Seselj surprised observers by drawing 22 percent of the vote in the first round of balloting last month, but his third-place showing kept him out of the runoff. Serbian officials are required to hold new elections within 90 days after the results are annulled. But Sunday night, the vice president of the leading democratic party in the Serbian parliament said election law requires the new vote to be held at least 30 days before the current president's mandate ends. Serbian President Milan Milutinovic must leave his post by December 28. He must appear before the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, having been indicted for war crimes committed in Kosovo. According to exit polls, current Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica led Miroljub Labus, Serbia's deputy prime minister, by more than two to one in Sunday's runoff. Both candidates are veterans of the movement that drove Milosevic, now on trial in The Hague for war crimes, from power in October 2000. But that movement has split since Milosevic's ouster. Labus has won Western praise for championing fast pro-market reforms. He has the backing of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, a fierce Kostunica opponent. Kostunica, a moderate nationalist, has been president of the Yugoslav federation since a popular uprising drove Milosevic from power. He has criticized Labus' reforms for throwing people out of work and into poverty. Serbia is the larger of the two republics remaining in the Yugoslav federation after a decade of Balkan wars. Yugoslavia's federal government, which Kostunica now leads, will become less important when an agreement reached in March loosens the union between Serbia and the smaller republic, Montenegro.
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