Presidential candidate
Tomislav Nikolic of the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party
casts his ballot on Sunday, January 20, 2008, in
Belgrade.
Tomislav Nikolic of the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party
was in lead on Sunday's Serbian presidential election, but he had
to face the incumbent pro-Western Boris Tadic in a presidential
run-off, first preliminary results showed on Sunday evening.
Nikolic won 38.26 percent of the votes, followed by the
candidate of the Democratic Party Tadic with 35.15 percent, said
Dragan Vukmirovic, director of the Serbian Statistics Office,
citing initial results.
Nikolic's and Tadic's camps each issued similar results and said
they were preparing for a Feb. 3 runoff.
Serbia's President
Boris Tadic casts his ballot at a polling station in Belgrade
January 20, 2008.
Vukmirovic said that the candidate of New Serbia party, Velimir
Ilic was the distant third with 8.11 percent of the votes. Ilic was
supported by Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and his
Democratic Party of Serbia.
The polling stations in Serbia were closed at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT)
after 13-hour voting.
The country's electoral commission said in a statement on Sunday
evening that 61.07 percent of 6.7 million registered voters had
cast their ballots at the presidential election on Sunday, which
represent data that had been obtained from the processed 29.2
percent of polling stations.
The turnout is the highest seen in any Serbian elections,
presidential or parliamentary, since the October 2000 election that
ended the rule of former leader Slobodan Milosevic.
(Xinhua News Agency, January 21, 2008)
