Serbia’s opposition scrapes into power

Based on a sample count, pollster CESID put Mr Nikolic ahead with 49.4 per cent against Mr Tadic on 47.4 per cent after a run-off in which fewer than half of Serbia’s eligible voters turned out.

Mr Tadic, who has been president since 2004, conceded defeat and appealed for the country to continue with its aim of integrating with the EU.

Mr Nikolic’s apparent victory could split power in the former Yugoslav republic, with Mr Tadic’s Democratic Party poised to again lead the government in a coalition after a 6 May parliamentary election.

Under the Serbian constitution, the prime minister is more powerful than the president, but the head of state can hold up legislation.

Twice elected president since 2004, Mr Tadic, 54, was part of the reformist bloc that ousted strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 after a decade of war and isolation during the collapse of Yugoslavia.

Under Mr Tadic, Serbia in March became an official candidate for EU membership, but there is deep frustration among Serbs over the grinding transition from socialism to capitalism, amid an economic slowdown that has driven unemployment up to 24 per cent.

Mr Nikolic, 60, was an ultra-nationalist ally of Milosevic when Serbia was bombed by Nato in 1999. But, since twice losing to Mr Tadic, he has tried to rebrand himself as a pro- European conservative.

“I don’t trust either candidate but I had to make a choice and I voted for Nikolic because he seems less fake than Tadic,” said bus driver Marko Jovanovic.

A dour former cemetery manager, Mr Nikolic has accused the Democrats of stealing the first-round presidential vote and a parliamentary election on 6 May, and threatened to call supporters into the streets.

Election authorities and foreign monitors found no evidence of the 500,000 votes Mr Nikolic said were forged, but the row has raised the prospect of a disputed result at a time when Serbia needs stability in order to clinch EU accession talks.