Serbia radicals, democrats jointly in lead

BELGRADE, Serbia, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- Serbia's ultra-nationalist Radical Party and pro-Western Democratic Party are tied in a popularity poll for the first time in two years.

A poll published Friday said the radicals and the democrats each had the support of 30 percent of the respondents, Belgrade's Politika newspaper reported.

In a May poll, the radicals, whose incumbent leader Vojislav Seselj is in detention in the U.N. tribunal in The Hague awaiting trial for war crimes, led the popularity list with 38 percent, followed by the democrats with 28 percent.

In the 1990-95 period, Seselj's radicals supported militant policies of the Socialist party of the late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic in ruling Serbia and waging ethnic wars in the former Yugoslavia.

The poll, taken by the Belgrade CESID Center for free elections and democracy, examines what would be citizens' support if parliamentary elections were held now.

The survey was done in early September among 1,400 citizens across Serbia, without the predominantly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo province.

The CESID poll showed only another two parties, the ruling Democratic Party of Serbia with 14 percent and Milosevic's Socialist party with 6 percent, would win parliamentary seats.