I read that President Kostunica was going to challenge the Serbian election results on the grounds that the election commission, in cahoots with the present government and their candidate, had overcounted the number of registered voters, and thus falsely determined the turnout to be under 50%. (And thus void, allowing their boy to stay in office. Boy, I wish we had a law like that here, where an under 50% turnout made the election void. Then it'd be fun not to vote.) But besides a passing mention here and there, usually with a hint of sour grapes, nowhere did I see mentioned how straightforward Kostunica's case seems to be -- except in Observer, which is the Financial Times' idea of a gossip column. This quote is from the Wednesday, October 16, 2002 column, in an item called "Balkan Maths:"
<quote>
The arithmetic behind Serbia's failed presidential election is as mystifying as the result.
Turnout fell short of 50 per cent, so by law the polls are invalid. Sounds straightforward enough, but in the topsy-turvy world of Balkan statistics nothing is simple. The question: 50 per cent of what?
Officially, Serbia's electorate is 6.5m strong. But of those, some 600,000 live abroad, and Yugoslav embassies provided no service for expatriate Serbs wishing to vote. There goes 9 per cent.
<end quote>
If 9% were knocked off, the election would be valid and Kostunica would be judged to have won in a landslide.
Michael