Western politicians kept up the pressure on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic yesterday, expecting he would try to fix the weekend's presidential elections in his favour and warning of the consequences.
The European Union, which has already called on the Yugoslav electorate to vote Mr Milosevic out of office, announced that Belgrade had refused to allow a delegation of EU deputies to observe the elections.
"Forty-eight hours before the election, this lack of response indicates Belgrade's refusal to allow the parliamentarians to carry out their mission in freedom and without handicap," said a French foreign ministry statement. "Under these conditions, their mission cannot take place. The EU will draw its own conclusions."
The US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, led the charge on Thursday, saying bluntly: "I think Milosevic is going to do everything he can to steal the election. We will not accept an election where the victory is declared on the basis of a manipulation of a premature declaration of victory." The EU promised on Monday to lift sanctions if Mr Milosevic was defeated at the polls, a statement backed by the US State Department. But many Serbians from both sides of the political fence see the West's overtures as blatant interference in Yugoslav affairs.
The Milosevic camp, meanwhile, has remained defiant. The Yugoslav Prime Minister, Mr Momir Bulatovic, told the private Montenegrin television station Elmag yesterday that regardless of the result Mr Milosevic would serve out the rest of his four-year mandate, which expires in July 2001.
The Yugoslav Foreign Minister, Mr Zivadin Jovanovic, told yesterday's edition of the Italian daily Corriere della Sera that the voters would back Mr Milosevic.
Politicians in Belgrade's ruling coalition have dismissed as "false" opinion polls that have put the main opposition presidential candidate, Mr Vojislav Kostunica, ahead of Mr Milosevic.
Meanwhile, Croatian President Stipe Mesic has told the Croatian army to be alert after the elections. "Serbia is a European and a global problem and we have to be prepared for all possibilities because Milosevic has not given up the idea of a Greater Serbia," the daily Vecernji List quoted Mr Mesic as telling military commanders.
He said that, should the situation deteriorate, any action to protect Croatia's borders would be co-ordinated with "our allies". Croatia, a member of NATO's Partnership for Peace, is staging a joint manoeuvre with US troops in the southern Adriatic on Monday, but has denied any connection with the Yugoslav vote.
Emotions were rising among the isolated Serbians of central Kosovo on Friday, 48 hours before the Yugoslav elections. A few dozen left Kosovo for Serbia in a convoy of 20 cars under the armed protection of Norwegian troops serving with the NATOled Kfor peacekeeping force.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority is totally ignoring the ballot for a Yugoslav president and federal assembly, which it views as a purely Serbian affair that no longer concerns Kosovo.
A Yugoslav soldier killed a Montenegrin policeman in a Podgorica cafe after a heated quarrel. Nebojsa Lekovic was shot dead by his long-time friend Momcilo Mojasevic early yesterday, after the two, both off duty, spent "hours quarrelling over the tense political situation in Yugoslavia," a police source said yesterday.