Serb Opposition Claims Election Victories

Serbia’s opposition claimed Sunday to have scored its first victory over President Slobodan Milosevic, saying it won municipal elections in Serbian towns that were traditional bastions of the ruling Socialists.

Hours after polls closed, opposition supporters flocked to a boisterous celebration in downtown Belgrade. If the opposition maintains its lead there, it would give Belgrade its first non-Communist mayor since 1945.

“This is a big day for democratic Serbia,” proclaimed Vuk Draskovic, leader of the four-party Zajedno (Together) coalition that challenged the leftist bloc of Milosevic’s Socialists and the neo-communist party headed by his wife, Mirjana Markovic.

The jubilation was based on returns from only 20 of some 190 municipal districts. But the opposition claimed victory in the key industrial city of Kragujevac, and said it was leading in Nis and Belgrade.