Yugoslav ex-president Mr Slobodan Milosevic, currently on trial before the Hague-based UN war crimes tribunal, will not be allowed run for the Serbian presidency in forthcoming elections.
The Socialist Party of Serbia, of which Mr Milosevic is still president, asked the electoral commission to decide if there was any legal obstacle to his candidacy on September 29th.
Tanjug news agency quoted a commission statement as saying that under the constitution Mr Milosevic could not be elected a third time.
Mr Milosevic was twice, in 1990 and 1992, elected president of Serbia, the larger of the two remaining republics that make up what remains of Yugoslavia.
Last month the party said that in the September election "the strongest candidate, with no rivals, will be Milosevic, who has shown, with his persistent, brave statesman's behaviour, what is the axiom of a struggle for national dignity, state and people."
After his ouster in 2000, Mr Milosevic was handed over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Netherlands in June 2001.
He faces charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide for atrocities committed during the wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.
AFP