SERBIA: Serbia adopted its first constitution of the post-Milosevic era yesterday after a last-minute surge to the polls saved a two-day referendum from failure due to insufficient turnout.
According to preliminary results from the respected national polling organisation CESID, 51.6 per cent of the electorate of 6.6 million voted in favour of the constitution. Overall turnout was 53.5 per cent.
The document of 206 articles includes a preamble reaffirming Serbian sovereignty over the breakaway province of Kosovo, whose 90 per cent ethnic Albanian majority ignored the vote, saying it made no difference to their demand for independence.
The previous constitution under the late strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 1990 stripped Kosovo of its autonomy and ushered in a decade of oppression culminating in a war with Nato that ended with Kosovo being removed to United Nations control.
Debate on the content of the new constitution was scant ahead of the vote, and analysis of the result focused on how close it had come to failure by banking on the emotional pull of the Kosovo issue for Serbs.
"The magic figure of 3.32 million was passed at 7pm," said Zoran Lucic of CESID. Exactly 50 per cent had voted with one hour of polling still to go, he said. Mr Lucic's prediction of a final turnout of more than 53 per cent was later proved accurate.
The Bill's reference to Kosovo as an "inalienable" part of Serbia is seen as an 11th-hour bid to block independence.
Critics say the clause was simply a fig leaf to help leaders duck responsibility for its impending loss, as well as a device to appeal to notoriously apathetic voters.
The United States says the clause changes nothing. The Kosovo Albanian demand for independence has the sympathy of western powers whose troops took control in 1999 to stop Milosevic's army killing civilians in a guerrilla war.
Diplomats say the United Nations could grant Kosovo a form of independence in the coming months over Serbia's objections.
Serbian president Boris Tadic had warned that rejection of the constitution would plunge Serbia into "months, maybe years" of political uncertainty. Prime minister Vojislav Kostunica said it would have had "bleak and unforeseeable consequences".
Mr Kostunica's minority coalition is on its last legs, with the resignations of its key partners in the liberal G17 Plus party in his drawer. G17 has said this would ensure early elections as soon as the constitutional vote is over.