Until tonight, Milosevic had appeared to be heading toward a confrontation with the five-party opposition coalition, Together, and the tens of thousands of protesters who have packed downtown Belgrade daily since Nov. 18. The opposition claims it captured 15 of Serbia's 19 biggest cities, including Belgrade and Serbia's fourth biggest city, Nis. But no matter what happens, Western diplomats and Serbs, including officials of Milosevic's government, agreed that the Serbian president will emerge from this contest a weakened man. Perhaps more important, they suggested, Milosevic's retreat and the newly forged unity of the previously fractious opposition leaders could transform political discourse in Yugoslavia. Now the rules have changed.
Democracy is possible.
But we have got to push on. The protests erupted in Belgrade, Nis and other cities last month after Milosevic's Socialists first admitted defeat in the municipal voting but then used courts and local election commissions to overturn the victories of the Together coalition. Western powers, which had supported Milosevic because of a desire to ensure his cooperation in carrying out the 1995 Dayton peace agreement in Bosnia, began to distance themselves from the Serbian president within days of the first marches. The United States warned Milosevic not to use force to quell the street protests. The European Union put off decisions to decrease customs duties on Yugoslav goods bound for Western Europe.