Guardian--I get the MGW, the overseas edition? seems unlikely. The tone is
all wrong. Anyway, the story is quite mad: Another, and more plausible,
reading, is that the USP succeeded in stuffing the ballot boxes for
Parliament, where attention was less focused, but was unable to do so
credibly in the presidential race, given the deep and intense hatred for
Slobo. I think it is fantasy toi suppose that the US or NATO was interested
in invading Serbia to boot him, even if he's succeeded in fixing the
elections: both Gore and the Shrub reacted to thsi suggestionw ith horror
when it it was proposed in the debates, and quite understandably. >>
One of the key, if not the actually decisive, factor in Slobbo's parliamentary majority was that the opposition to him in Montenegro, which happens to be the elected government there, boycotted this election. Consequently, his people won all those seats there, allowing the USP to roll up their numbers in the Yugoslavian parliament. As best as I can figure it, the Montenegro forces had completely given up on the capacity of the opposition in Serbia to get their act together and present one, unified opposition candidate in the presidential election, and so they were working on a strategy that would lead to the eventual separation of Montenegro from Serbia. A miscalculation on their part, to be sure, but one based on some very real history of in-fighting among the Serbian opposition and one that Slobbo also shared -- there would have been no election if he seriously thought defeat was possible.
Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass --