Serb opposition supporters in Kosovo complained of vote-rigging and manipulation by supporters of President Slobodan Milosevic, as the province's Serb minority turned out to vote in a chaotic sideshow to Yugoslavia's elections.
"People whose names are not on the voting list, when they should be, are being told they cannot vote, and these are all supporters of the opposition," said Mr Oliver Ivanovic, a leader of Kosovo's Serb National Council and a supporter of the opposition candidate, Mr Vojislav Kostunica.
"It's happening here at several polling stations in Mitrovica," he said, adding that the wife of Mr Nikola Kabajic, a local Serb politician and opposition supporter, found she could not vote after her name was removed from the voting list.
Dr Bernard Kouchner, the head of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), announced that 460 UN and other international witnesses had counted a maximum number of Serb voters entering some 260 polling stations by close of polling at 4 p.m. local time at around 44,000.
"It was a calm day with no major incidents," he said. "Kfor and UNMIK worked hard to prevent any security incidents."
Of the estimated 105,000 Serbs remaining in Kosovo, some 60,000 are eligible to vote, so the estimate represents a 65 per cent turnout.
In the Serb-dominated north of Mitrovica, a group of 25 students, all of whom were set to vote for Mr Kostunica's DOS opposition coalition, were ejected from a polling-station after they discovered all their names had "disappeared" from the voting list.
"I was going to vote for Kostunica," said a student, who would only give his nickname "Mico" for fear of reprisals. "I think names are being removed from the register, and Milosevic's party is attempting to steal our votes."
"It's manipulation," said a young female student, who wouldn't give her name. "I was already registered but my name was removed from the computer list."
Voting conditions were chaotic, with no screen between polling booths, with voters forced to fill in their ballot papers in full view of other voters.
In other Kosovan Serb enclaves, such as Zubin Potok, Gracanica and Zvecan, there were also complaints of attempts by Mr Milosevic's supporters to rig voting.
In some areas opposition officials complained of the existence of secondary voting lists which enabled Mr Milosevic's supporters to vote twice.
Kosovo's Albanian majority boycotted the elections almost totally, after calls by local Albanian leaders who refuse to accept Yugoslav polls on Kosovan soil.
Mr Milosevic had been trailing in the polls to Mr Kostunica, and it was feared that he would use the chaotic state of Kosovo's electoral lists, not updated since 1996, to steal some of the 500,000-plus votes he needs to win.
NATO peacekeepers provided a heavy but discreet security presence outside polling stations, designed to deter any attacks from Albanians.
"We're outside the polling station, not inside, because arms, uniforms and ballot-boxes don't make a good mix," said French Lieut-Col Jacques Maguin, positioned outside a polling-station in Mitrovica.
"We're on alert and our troops are deployed, but we won't intervene unless there are problems."
Some 55 Serbs cast their vote in the capital, Pristina, a city of 450,000 people.
"That Kostunica, he's a shit," said 77-year-old Ms Dragica Radicevic, voting in northern Mitrovica's Technical School. "He should just be killed," added the cardiganed septuagenarian, dressed neatly in a tweed skirt and brushed deck-shoes.
She leaned heavily on a walking-stick and cried as she described how her Albanian neighbours had forced her from her home in southern Mitrovica the year before.
Reuters reports from Skopje:
Voting in the second round of Macedonia's local elections yesterday, overshadowed by tensions in neighbouring Yugoslavia, appeared more orderly than the first round two weeks ago.
"So far I have reports that mention only minor incidents which cannot be compared to what has happened in the first round," the Prime Minister, Mr Ljubco Georgievski, said.
International observers condemned the first round as undemocratic in many mostly ethnic Albanian areas because of proxy voting, ballot stuffing and violence.
In the mostly ethnic Albanian village of Kondovo near the capital Skopje, where three people were injured in a shooting incident two weeks ago, polling stations were open and OSCE observers present but reporters saw no voters.
Most residents declined to comment but one said the village was too shocked after Saturday's funeral of one of the three victims.
Macedonia is the only republic in former Yugoslavia which broke away from Belgrade in 1991 without a war. The Macedonian poll is a battle between the reformist coalition government and the opposition led by the ex-communist Social Democratic Union of Macedonia.