Yugoslav president confident presidential elections will succeed.

(From BBC Monitoring International Reports)

In BK TV's regular guest speaker programme "It Is Not Serbian To Keep Quiet", hosted by Dragan Bujosevic, Serbian presidential candidate Vojislav Kostunica said he was running for Serbian presidency so he would prevent "possible destruction" of the joint state of Serbia and Montenegro. Kostunica criticized the Serbian election law, describing parts of it as "incredible". He said that voter lists were not updated and said he understood that the Serbian government's intention was to see the forthcoming presidential elections fail. The following is an excerpt of the interview broadcast Belgrade-based private BKTV on 1

[Host Dragan Bujosevic] You are watching It Is Not Serbian To Keep Quiet. I am Dragan Bujosevic. My guest is undoubtedly the most popular politician in Serbia. This was quite enough for him to defeat [former Yugoslav President] Slobodan Milosevic in the September 2000 elections for Yugoslav president. On the other hand, this was not enough for him to become Serbian president in September [this year].

Whatever trust people have in him, and despite [Serbian writer] Isidora Bjelica's saying that, of all politicians, he is the only one whom she would trust to take care of her child we are yet to see on 8 December whether citizens of Serbia will have enough trust in him to allow him to take care of the Serbian state. Mr Vojislav Kostunica, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Serbia [DSS], the Yugoslav president and Serbian presidential candidate. Welcome to It Is Not Serbian To Keep Quiet. How are you?

[Kostunica] Better for seeing you.

[Bujosevic] A member of your party, [DSS deputy chairman] Dejan Mihajlov, said in a TV interview that you had been offered the post of president of this new state, the union of Serbia and Montenegro?

[Kostunica] Well, it is important that this state is created. I think that its creation is within reach - its constitutional setup, the adoption of its constitutional charter. As it always happens with such generous statements [regarding the offer on the presidential post], you may ask yourself about the motives. Perhaps, it would suit somebody that I should find myself in this post so that I would not take part in the elections which are due to take place within several days in Serbia, that is, that I should not be found in the post of Serbian president. However, what is most important is that we should bring this painful business to a close in which this was not about as one frequently presented it to our public and as individual analysts present it about a clash of vanities, intolerance, but rather about very strong and opposing interests.

We should bring this business to an end and I think that we have come very close to that - Serbia and Montenegro will have a constitution, they will have institutions, they would for the first time have representatives of all political options in Montenegro sitting in the institutions of the state union. There would be no divisions and there would be no contesting of legitimacy of the state. It will enjoy support of all, just as it enjoys support of Europe and the European Union at this moment.

Reasons for running Serbian presidential race

[Bujosevic] All right, and who offered you the post of president? Was this offer serious, so to speak?

[Kostunica] Well, you know, motives were very clear to me and there were, of course, different kinds of motives. However, I was thinking that the time has come for things in Serbia to get a little bit of support and I decided to go for the [Serbian] presidential elections. So a state which I bear in mind, that future state union of Serbia and …