Belgrade - Serbs voted strongly for closer ties with Europe in crucial parliamentary elections Sunday, handing a stinging, unexpected defeat to nationalist parties that had appealed to resentment over the loss of Kosovo.
President Boris Tadic's pro-European coalition won the most votes for the new parliament, polling a projected 39 per cent, and declared victory.
But as thousands of supporters celebrated with a street party and fireworks, the leader of the main ultra-nationalist party refused to concede defeat.
At his Belgrade campaign headquarters, Tadic popped a huge champagne bottle and said his party would lay claim to the prime minister's post held until now by the increasingly nationalist Vojislav Kostunica.
He reaffirmed his stand, shared by virtually all Serb parties, that he would never accept Kosovo's February declaration of independence from Serbia.
'The citizens of Serbia showed they want Serbia in the EU and Serbia will be in the EU,' Tadic said. 'That is our first strategic goal.'
'Our second strategic goal is preservation of territorial integrity and sovereignty of Serbia. The new government will never accept Kosovo's independence and will fight with all diplomatic and political means against it,' he said.
The European Union presidency, currently held by Slovenia, welcomed the 'clear victory of pro-European forces' and said it hopes to see a new government with a 'clear European agenda' quickly in place in Belgrade.
A bitter Kostunica, speaking to reporters, ruled out cooperation with Tadic's party, citing differences 'cannot be bridged.'
Tadic's supporters, most of them young, spilled into the capital's streets as news of their victory spread, waving flags and banners and honking their car horns.
Vote projections by the independent Center for Free Election and Democracy gave the anti-Western bloc of the main opposition Radicals (SRS) 29 per cent of the vote and Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) 11.6 per cent.
Both parties were projected to lose seats - the SRS four seats to 77 and Kostunica's party 17 for a new tally of 30.
Tadic's Democratic Party was expected to win 103 seats. With a projected 13 seats for his Liberal Democratic allies and the votes of ethnic minority representatives, the pro-European camp appeared close to a majority in the 250-seat Belgrade assembly.
They would however still need the backing of the late strongman Slobodan Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), projected to have 20 seats.
The SPS remained uncommitted, its leader Ivica Dacic saying the party would 'not just ... tip the scale' one way or another, but insist on having its programme accepted by coalition partners.
Tadic said he would hold coalition talks with any party whose goals include EU membership, better living standards for Serbs and handing over long-sought suspects to the Hague war crimes tribunal.
Tadic's supporters saw the election outcome as a definitive parting with the legacy of the violent nationalism of the 1990s, which SRS took part in and which Kostunica never denounced though it was a major ingredient of wars in former Yugoslavia.
'This will finally wipe out the Radicals and the national populists (DSS),' said Goran Kokanovic, 50, one of the celebrants in front of the DS city headquarters in downtown Belgrade.
But SRS leader Tomislav Nikolic refused to acknowledge defeat and warned Tadic of raising tensions by proclaiming a victory before he secured the majority in parliament.
The anti-Western bloc retained a theoretical, but unlikely shot of assembling a majority with DSS and SPS, combining for 127 seats.
'Tadic should tone down emotions, these artificial emotions, and seek out his coalition potential,' Nikolic told reporters. 'Already tomorrow we'll know if a coalition including DS is possible at all.'
The Radicals have won the most votes in the previous two elections, but remained out of power owing to their pariah status. Unlike the SPS, the SRS has refused to abandon its belligerent rhetoric of the past decade.
'Had we behaved like that (Tadic) in the past, we would have already had civil war on our streets,' Nikolic warned.
Kostunica and the Radicals, the big losers on the night, had campaigned on pledges to turn Serbia away from EU membership talks in protest at Western support of Kosovo's secession.
The SPS did slightly better than forecast by winning 8 per cent, or a projected 20 seats, but improved its position hugely by taking over from DSS as the only party capable of allying either of the two big blocs.
The vote was closely watched by Serbia's neighbours and the European Union, which signed a pre-membership agreement with Belgrade shortly before the election hoping to boost the pro-Europe camp.
The EU's gamble may have worked. A poll shortly before the election showed that the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA), denounced by Serbian nationalist parties as a sellout of Kosovo, was actually supported by up to one-third of their voters.
Turnout was about 61 per cent, Cesid said, lower than expected after Serb politicians drummed up the election for weeks as crucial for the nation's course.
The outcome - and the turnaround from pre-election polls - are a carbon copy of the presidential election in January and February, in which Tadic was underdog to SRS candidate Tomislav Nikolic but, after trailing in surveys and losing the first-round vote, clearly won in the run-off on February 3.
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