Belgrade / Brussels / Strasbourg / Zagreb, 28/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - The Yugoslav electoral commission has officially fixed the date of 8 October for a second round in the presidential elections, stating that, according to the final results of the first round, the opposition candidate, Mr Kostunica, won with 49% of the votes against 39% for outgoing president, Mr Milosevic. The opposition challenges these figures and states Vojislav Kostunica won over 50% of the votes.
Furthermore, Croatian President Stipe Mesic answered questions put by the press on the subject of sanctions against Belgrade. He affirmed that the UN sanctions could only be lifted "once Yugoslavia has done what we have done, when it has agreed to cooperate with the International Tribunal in The Hague and has given its war criminals up to justice".
On Thursday, the president of the EPP Group at the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering, felt that the Serb democratic forces now need concrete support and calls on European institutions to immediately initiate dialogue in order to immediately release funds for FRY. Furthermore, he called for a debate on the situation in the FRY during the European Parliament's plenary session, next week in Strasbourg. Doris Pack, Chair of the EP Delegation for relations with South Eastern Europe, called for sanctions which do not have a direct impact on the daily life of the Serb people to be lifted.
Bodo Hombach, Special Coordinator of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, declared that the partners of the Pact "are already responding to Mr Kostunica's victory". Thus, not only the EU Presidency has promised to lift sanctions and has guaranteed immediate aid for reconstruction and development in Serbia but also other Pact countries, including the United States, with a pledge to give "substantial immediate assistance". "We wish to welcome a democratic FRY into the Stability Pact as soon as possible as a full, equal and key partner", said Mr Hombach, who recalled that the members of the Pact have already earmarked additional financial resources for a democratic Yugoslavia. "A democratic Yugoslavia", he said, "will be able to count on assistance from the international community for such vital areas as reconstruction, refugee return, economic development, interregional and intra-regional trade cooperation, and the other sectors covered by the Pact".
The president of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, Lord Russell-Johnston, affirmed for his part that the Yugoslav elections were "flawed before the polls opened, and they were flawed after they closed". He went on to say: "If the conditions before the vote had been even remotely free and fair, Kostunica would have won in the first round. If the ballots had been counted under supervision we have every reason to believe Kostunica would again have won in the first round. Milosevic's options are running out. He knows that the second round, if it takes place, would be a foregone conclusion. If he tried to reverse the odds, it would not be through electoral campaigning. (…). The international community must make it absolutely clear that it will not accept any outcome which would prolong his political life. Ten years of terror and two hundred thousand victims of wars he started are enough. He must go".