Reports of intimidation and election irregularities were rife across Yugoslavia yesterday, as Slobodan Milosevic faced the voters in a poll that threatens to end his decade in power.
The historic, direct-election, presidential poll has seen Milosevic battling for survival over the past week.
A turnout that was higher than expectations piled further pressure on the regime, which breached election law and committed a whole series of irregularities during the poll, according to a non-government body seeking to monitor the vote.
But despite these allegations, the opposition was yesterday in upbeat mood. The high voter numbers even led some to believe that opposition challenger Dr Vojislav Kostunica could even beat Milosevic outright in the first round.
But even if there were a victory at the ballot box, many fear what would happen next. An uneasy fear has been seeping across the country for days.
Even those confident of opposition victory at the ballot box are terrified that Milosevic will not step down without bloodshed.
An official of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), Cedomir Jovanovic, said that a high turnout meant that a second vote would have to be held in two weeks' time. "It is clear that our rival (Milosevic) cannot win the three million votes which are necessary for him to win in the first round," Jovanovic said.
The DOS was backing Vojislav Kostunica as presidential candidate. Before the poll, Kostunica was given a five to 18-point lead in voter-intention surveys over Milosevic, tipping him as the favourite.
Jovanovic said that the turnout in Serbia was 74.3 per cent, shortly before the closing of the polling stations, and that meant "it is clear for us that Yugoslavia will have to wait two weeks to know who its president is".
Psychologist Zorica Razic is among those fearing violence: "I think tonight nothing will happen but on Monday I think people will be massacred on the streets of Belgrade," she said.
On the eve of the poll, the election authorities announced a change in voting procedure that many believe breaches the fundamental right of voter privacy.
The Federal Election Commission ruled that every single ballot slip would be checked by the local election board to ensure that there is only one slip being put into the ballot box.
Detailed instructions were given for the handling of these ballot papers but this means voting slips are physically handled by election board officials before going into the box and the majority of election officials are from regime parties.
The process is even more intimidating for members of the army or for those voting and working in government-controlled firms and factories, when superior officers or factory managers may be top officials on the voting boards.
"After circling the desired candidate, the voter will give his folded ballot to the voting board. They will check to see if there is another ballot in the first, but without violating the secrecy of the ballot," the election authorities' instructions say.
In southern Serbia, where voting fraud was most feared, 370 polling stations had no representative of the opposition on the board, said an opposition spokesman.
A non-government group seeking to monitor the poll listed dozens of irregularities, saying that the governor of a local jail was on the local election board in the southern town of Vranje; while, according to the opposition, an armed military vehicle was parked outside another polling station in that district.
The monitoring group known as the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CESID) said that in the Bosnian border region of Uzice, a uniformed police officer was on the board - a figure of authority whose presence could intimidate voters.
Marko Blagojevic, CESID spokesman, said that in the southern region of Leskovac the voting lists were not opened up for inspection and voting was taking place without people needing identification.
He said opposition members were not allowed to be on the local election boards and that the voting places were not private.
In Belgrade, 37-year-old Dragana Manojlovic said: "My stomach feels as if it has a rock in it, I couldn't sleep last night because I was very nervous."
Her husband, Davor, had volunteered to be on the election board of a nearby polling station for the opposition and she feared for him: "Davor left to go to monitor elections at one polling station and it was as if he was going to war. We didn't say `goodbye' to each other, we said `good luck'."
At the local Jovan Sterija Popovic Primary School, where Dragana was to vote, officials refused to allow The Irish Times to interview those standing in the long queues and waiting vote.
Journalists are allowed by law to enter polling stations and do their work there, but are forbidden to ask people what party they will vote for.
However, The Irish Times reporter was threatened and told to leave, or the police would be called.
A short, plump, dark man in a blue suit, who refused to give his name but said he was on the election board, said: "I can't give you anything. You need a special permit to come in here."
Before he voted, Dragana went to nearby St George Orthodox church and lit six candles: "The first is for a democratic Serbia and for our victory, for the end of this regime and this isolation," she said.
"The other five candles are for the health and long life of everyone in my family, that they should live in a democratic Serbia" from tomorrow, she said.