A former Kosovo rebel leader conceded yesterday that his party apparently suffered defeat in weekend municipal elections.
The council elections were widely seen as a barometer of the popularity of leaders intent on bringing independence to the province. UN officials had feared losers might stir up trouble if they were disappointed with the results.
Mr Hashim Thaci, former political chief of the now-disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army, said he would await official results before announcing further steps. Nevertheless, he appeared to accept the outcome, saying he was not satisfied but was "convinced that we will manage to enlarge our support".
The statement appeared to indicate that the former rebel leader would peacefully abide by the results, a move likely to reassure international officials running the province, who feared violence in the event of a loss by the former rebels.
Results so far show that Dr Ibrahim Rugova's party trounced Mr Thaci's in elections for seats in city and town halls.
The elections were the first since NATO bombing forced the former Yugoslav leader, Mr Slobodan Milosevic, to pull out his troops in June 1999, leaving Kosovo to be run by the UN and NATO.
Dr Rugova declared victory based on figures compiled by independent monitoring groups and his own party, the Democratic League of Kosovo. Both showed his party winning the majority of votes.
He claimed to have won 20 of the 30 municipalities, but his biggest victory may have been the capital, Pristina, where Dr Rugova's party said it had won about 68 per cent of the vote.
Yugoslavia's new President strongly criticised the whole process. Mr Vojislav Kostunica insisted that a Serb boycott of the vote in the province made it invalid. Serbs reacted cautiously to the apparent victory by moderate politicians, demanding that the rights of the province's minorities be respected in order for the win to be legitimate.
"I think that democratic legitimacy of the [Rugova party] will depend very much on their position toward the rights of the Serbs and other minorities in Kosovo," said Father Sava Janjic, a moderate Serb leader.