Other regional elections

About 2 million Bosnians were forced to flee their homes in the early 1990s

By Douglas Herbert, CNN.com writer

(CNN) -- Yugoslav voters were not the only ones who went to the polls in the autumn of 2000. The region's electoral calendar was peppered with a string of other contests that international observers viewed as litmus tests for greater stability throughout southeastern Europe.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, strong inroads by nationalist parties suggest that the West has its work cut out and that the scars from ethnic bloodletting in the 1990s will be a long time healing. Meanwhile, recent elections in Albania and Macedonia were marred by allegations of irregularities.

In the Republic of Slovenia, the former prime minister returned to power six months after the collapse of his governing coalition. Slovenia achieved independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 and has since been striving towards fast-track integration with the European Union.

The following is a rundown of races by country:

Bosnia and Herzegovina

A strong showing by nationalist Croats, Serbs and Muslims at general elections held on November 11 dampened Western hopes for a shift away from confrontation in Bosnia and Herzegovina five years after the Dayton peace agreement laid the groundwork for a tenuous peace in the region.

Serb and Croat parties, including some directly implicated in the ethnic bloodshed and atrocities of the recent war in Bosnia, posted solid showings in the two administrative enclaves -- the Muslim-Croat federation and the Serb republic -- into which Bosnia was partitioned under the Dayton accords. The Serb Democratic Party of Radovan Karadzic, an indicted war criminal, was among the victors.

Nonetheless, moderate parties made solid enough gains to force the nationalists -- at least in theory -- into coalition governments, or at least to block their agendas in either of the administrative sub-states or in the combined Bosnian parliament. The leader of Bosnia's largest multi-ethnic party said shortly after the election that while he would not enter into a coalition with nationalists, he would consider forming alliances with other moderates.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe has expressed concern that reforms may be delayed if the post-election political maneuvering drags on.

The West has injected about $5 billion in aid into Bosnia to foster democracy since the war ended. The elections came at a time when steadily rising numbers of refugees have been returning to areas of their homeland forcibly resettled by other ethnic groups during the Bosnian war.

Kosovo

Since the withdrawal of NATO tanks, gangs of Albanians have reportedly carried out attacks against their Serb enemies in this U.N.-administered province of Serbia. More than half of the province's estimated 300,000 Serbs have fled or taken refuge in tiny, isolated enclaves of the province north of the divided town of Mitrovica or in pockets around the capital, Pristina.

Mitrovica remains a divided city as tensions between Serbs and ethnic Albanians continue to flare

Against this backdrop, Kosovars voted in local elections on October 28. Though the international community is yet to address the issue of Kosovo's final status within Serbia, Kosovars gave a strong indication of how they want the issue resolved.

With the election of Ibrahim Rugova, the moderate leader of the Democratic League of Kosovo and the longtime standard-bearer of Kosovo's struggle for autonomy from Serbia, Kosovars showed they prefer a non-violent route towards independence. Rugova's party garnered 58 percent of the vote, more than twice the 27 percent tallied by the Democratic Party of Kosovo of Hashim Thaci. Thaci is a former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army.

The Kosovars' independence drive has gained new urgency following the ouster of Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic as Yugoslav president in October 2000. Many Kosovars fear that with the advent of a more moderate Serb in power, their yearnings for autonomy will go unheeded by the West.

Albania

Albania has emerged from the second round of voting in municipal elections free of the bloodshed that roiled its general election in 1997, when the country spiralled into anarchy in which more than 2,000 people died. The second-round vote, held on October 15, came two weeks after Albania's ruling Socialists claimed victory in local elections that former president Sali Berisha's opposition Democratic Party said had been "grossly manipulated."

French peacekeepers struggle to control an ethnic Albanian demonstration in Kosovo

The Democratic Party boycotted the second-round vote following the October 1 first-round election for candidates in 28 mayoral races and 128 councils. But some Democrats, disenchanted with Berisha, voted anyway. Berisha himself stopped short of saying his party would not honour the election results.

OSCE, the international observer monitoring the election, said the voting, while generally calm, was marred by nationalist tensions in a southwestern enclave that is home to a large Greek-speaking minority.

OSCE said that in the Himare area, across from Corfu, "the end of the campaign ... was marred by nationalist rhetoric, reported at length in the press even on election day, in an environment of increased tension with a neighbouring country." That country, left unnamed in the OSCE statement, is Greece, which voiced concern that the situation in Himare could strain its relations with the European Union.

The run-up to the vote was characterised by a bitter tit-for-tat between Berisha, who was ousted in the 1997 rebellion, and Fatos Nano, leader of the governing Socialist Party. Berisha's party scored a resounding victory in the last local elections, in October 1996. Before the latest vote, his party dominated the country's city and district councils, with 80 percent control.

Macedonia

Municipal elections in Macedonia, where ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians live in an often-uneasy coexistence, followed a pattern similar to that observed in Albania.

Second rounds of mayoral elections were held on September 24 in 54 municipalities where no outright winner emerged from the initial ballot on September 10. The first round of voting was repeated partially or entirely in another 27 municipalities. Elections were held in a total of 123 municipalities.

OSCE said it had noted acts of "violence and intimidation" in a number of municipalities. The violence was particularly severe, the organisation said, in areas where the political races were especially tight, such as Strumica, Struga, Ohrid and some municipalities in the capital, Skopje.

Among the major irregularities reported in the second round were an increased number of cases of ballot-box stuffing, at least 14 cases of ballot-box destruction, and voter intimidation in a number of polling stations.

Ethnic tensions in Macedonia have been stoked by the recent Kosovo conflict, which ethnic Macedonians fear could spur the country's Albanians to demand more autonomy.

Slovenia

Liberal Democrat Janez Drnovsek recaptured his seat at the head of the Republic of Slovenia's government six months after the collapse of his coalition cast a pall over efforts to gain fast-track entry to the European Union and NATO.

Drnovsek's centre-left party won just over 36 percent of the vote in the October 15 parliamentary elections.

The reappointment of Drnovsek, who has held office almost continuously since his country's independence in 1991, may help put the country back on a more stable political footing following the disarray triggered by his coalition's collapse in April.

Slovenia emerged virtually unscathed from the Balkan wars of the early 1990s. The country has oriented itself towards Western Europe since its declaration of independence in 1991.

Despite its geographical proximity to the northwestern Balkan peninsula, Slovenes today claim a greater cultural, social, economic and political affinity with neighbouring Mediterranean and Transalpine regions of Europe.

The country is bordered on the west by Italy's Friuli-Venezia Giulia region and in the north by the Austrian states of Burgenland, Styria and Carinthia. Slovenia has received high grades from Western governments on human rights protection and for introducing a viable market economy.