Milosevic Challenges Ruling That He Lost Belgrade

Slobodan Milosevic’s Socialist party is challenging a ruling that ordered the government to give up control of Belgrade, an ally of the Serbian president said Saturday.

Socialist officials would not confirm whether they had filed their appeal by the Saturday evening deadline, but Zarko Jokanovic, vice president of the Socialist-allied New Democracy party, said he understood it had been done.

The Belgrade electoral commission recently ruled that the opposition won Nov. 17 local elections in the capital. Earlier, Milosevic had annulled the Belgrade victory and those in 13 other towns, prompting nearly nine weeks of street protests and international calls for him to reinstate the results.

Milosevic has conceded some towns, but has refused to bend on Belgrade. A formal appeal, however, could further weaken the Serbian president, who has seen his image as an unquestioned leader crumble in the face of the protests.

The New Democracy party has urged the Socialists to give up their claim on Belgrade, and New Democracy chief of staff Ivan Djordjevic said his party “might rethink the alliance” with the Socialists if they continued to insist on keeping the capital.

Without the New Democracy party, the Socialists would be outnumbered in Serbia’s parliament and the government could be forced to resign.

Milosevic already has seen key lieutenants oppose him over the elections and has purged some of them in his battle for control of his party and government.

The former Socialist mayor of Belgrade, who was ousted from the party last week, suggested that neoCommunists led by the president’s wife were to blame for the political crisis. Milosevic’s wife, Mirjana Markovic, is said by associates to exert great influence over the president.

More than 10,000 people rallied against Milosevic on Saturday, some dressed as traffic policemen, gladiators or deep-sea divers.

Opposition leaders had asked supporters to wear some kind of uniform to mock riot police who regularly confine pro-democracy supporters to a downtown pedestrian mall.

“We want to show that there are other kinds of uniforms, uniforms without weapons,” said demonstrator Dragan Vesilinovic, dressed in a mock military jacket.