Fixing The Odds

EVEN ANTIDEMOCRATS LIKE SERBIAN PRESIDENT Slobodan Milosevic crave the legitimacy only elections can bestow; what is vexing is the chance of losing. So he fixed the odds. Milosevic now risks almost nothing in upcoming Dec. 20 balloting, since the Serbian Electoral Commission disqualified his most formidable opponent, Yugoslavian Prime Minister Milan Panic, for failing to meet a one-year residency requirement.

Panic, a businessman who made a fortune in California before taking up his post in July, appealed the decision to the Serbian Supreme Court, but that body is headed by the same man who heads the Electoral Commission. Leading opposition figures, citing other electoral shenanigans from the Milosevic camp, have threatened to boycott the elections altogether. (See related story on page 36.)