Party allied to Milosevic 'wins' election

An extreme nationalist party allied to former strongman Slobodan Milosevic won Serbia’s crucial parliamentary elections today but failed to get the majority needed to govern on its own, according to exit polls.

The Serbian Radical party won 27%, said the independent Centre For Free Elections and Democracy, whose exit polls have been highly accurate.

The moderate nationalist Democratic Party of Serbia came second with 17%, while the governing pro-Western Democratic Party was third with about 13%.

The moderate nationalists have previously ruled out a coalition with the Serbian Radical Party.

That would enable the pro-democratic parties that toppled Milosevic in 2000 and extradited him to the United Nations war crimes tribunal in 2001 to form a coalition government – if they put their deep differences aside.

“The official (election) results may differ slightly, but the general trend will remain,” said Zoran Lucic of the Centre For Free Elections.