SERBIA: Serbia faces an uncertain future this morning, after elections for a new president ended in shambles last night. The poll was declared invalid because fewer than the required 50 per cent of the electorate turned out to vote.
Western leaders will be dismayed that a boycott - called by the man backed by ousted Yugoslav leader Mr Slobodan Milosevic - appears to have been obeyed by many, indicating lingering support for the old regime.
Unseasonably cold and wet weather in Serbia yesterday, coupled with disillusion at bickering between the government leaders, will also have kept voters at home.
The two candidates remaining after a first round of voting two weeks ago, Mr Vojislav Kostunica and Mr Miroljub Labus, were both part of the coalition which overthrew Mr Milosevic two years ago this month. Figures last night showed 45.5 per cent of the 6½ million voters turned out yesterday, compared with 55 per cent in the first round of voting two weeks ago. In that round, Mr Vojislav Seselj - ultra-nationalist leader of the Serbian Radical Party and Mr Milosevic's preferred candidate - polled an unexpectedly high 23.23 per cent of the vote. This compared with 30.8 per cent for Mr Kostunica, who replaced Mr Milosevic as the Yugoslavian president after the popular revolt in 2000, and 27.36 per cent for Mr Labus.
Although Mr Seselj was knocked out of the race, his influence remained when he appealed for his supporters to stay away from yesterday's run-off.
Now new elections must be held within 60 days, leaving a power vacuum that may enable Mr Seselj to consolidate his support. Parliament may pass new laws in the meantime, to drop the requirement for half the electorate to vote if the next election is to be valid.
The political disarray also comes as Serbia and Montenegro, the only other republic remaining in the Yugoslav federation after a decade of civil wars, are negotiating looser ties. Parliamentary elections are to be held in Montenegro on Sunday, and the race is between forces for and against total separation from Serbia.
Yesterday's presidential poll in Serbia failed despite appeals from the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Yugoslav royal family, and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe calling on Serbs to ignore Mr Seselj and turn out to vote. But the writing was on the wall in the past two weeks, when graffiti supporting the ultra-nationalist appeared on lamp-posts and walls across Belgrade - even though Mr Seselj's traditional heartland is in Kosovo and other parts of southern Serbia far from the Serbian capital. Almost half those who voted in Kosovo two weeks ago stayed away yesterday.
The apparent influence of Mr Milosevic and Mr Seselj has also probably been bolstered by the regular televising of the overthrown president's trial in the Hague. Many Serbs feel the UN tribunal is biased and even Mr Milosevic's foes in Serbia say he is defending himself well.
Although life has improved in many ways for ordinary Serbs since the revolt of October 2000, there is also widespread disappointment that the ruling coalition has been deeply divided in the past year and spends more time bickering than in promoting policies.
The palpable atmosphere of fear during the Mr Milosevic years has been eradicated, pensions are regularly paid and roads and buildings are being modernised in Belgrade. But this has not been enough to placate hundreds of thousands who also face losing their jobs as the country struggles to catch up with western Europe. The choice in yesterday's election was between the fast-track economic reforms advocated by the economist, Mr Labus, and a slower pace of change sought by the moderate law professor, Mr Kostunica.