By
The Associated Press
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - Fresh from engineering the ouster of Slobodan Milosevic, backers of President Vojislav Kostunica wrestled yesterday with a new daunting task - creating a government free of powerful Milosevic allies without alienating them.
Even though Kostunica's authority was cemented by his inauguration as Yugoslav president Saturday, potential resistance to him remained on two levels: from Milosevic appointees still in place in federal ministries and from the powerful government of the Serbian republic.
Serbia, one of two Yugoslav republics, makes up 90 percent of Yugoslavia's population of 10 million. Its pro-Milosevic president - who by law has more powers than Kostunica - controls about 100,000 police and, indirectly, much of Serbia's economy.
The challenge facing Kostunica and his advisers yesterday was how to form a federal government quickly to replace the pro-Milosevic administration, while attempting to coexist with the Serbian republic's leadership.
"We need a government of discontinuity," said opposition leader Zoran Djindjic, who helped manage Kostunica's rise to power.
Also, the new leadership must deal with Milosevic himself, who has vowed to try to stage a comeback, saying he will remain in Yugoslavia.
Kostunica scored a stunning upset over Milosevic in the Sept. 24 presidential election. The strongman's attempt to deny Kostunica's victory sparked a national uprising, and Milosevic conceded defeat on Friday.
Kostunica has refused to extradite Milosevic to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, which indicted him last year for atrocities committed by his forces in Kosovo. But there were demands yesterday for Milosevic's trial at home.
Kostunica's 18-party bloc lacks a majority in the federal parliament, and will probably be compelled to cut deal with the Socialist People's Party of Montenegro, the smaller Yugoslav republic.
That party backed Milosevic until his downfall and now seeks to have one of its own appointed as Yugoslavia's prime minister. The constitution says that if the president is from Serbia, the prime minister must be Montenegrin.
Kostunica's camp has suggested a nonpartisan government of experts, but this appears to stand little chance of approval in the existing parliament.
Kostunica advisers have said they would push for new elections in Serbia in hopes the general disenchantment with Milosevic on the federal level would be reflected in a Serbian vote as well.
But that can only happen if the party now supporting Milosevic's Socialists in the separate Serbian parliament agrees. And that party's leader, ultranationalist Vojislav Seselj, is opposed because he fears new elections now would hurt his Radical party and only benefit the Kostunica camp.
Meanwhile, Norway's Foreign Minister Thorbjoern Jagland, and Mladjan Dinkic, head of an influential group of pro-Kostunica economists, demanded yesterday that Milosevic be prosecuted for vote-rigging.
"We now expect state prosecutors to bring charges against Slobodan Milosevic," Dinkic said. A human rights group in Yugoslavia, the Humanitarian Law Fund, also demanded punishment for the ousted autocrat, issuing long lists of his alleged misdeeds.
Milosevic is blamed by the West for starting four Balkan wars that broke out in the last decade when parts of Yugoslavia began to seek independence. Those conflicts were marked by horrific violence against civilians, which prompted Western governments to impose sanctions and isolate Belgrade.
Dinkic also called for a donor's conference on Yugoslavia with the aim of injecting at least $500 million into the cash-strapped country over the next year.
Cleaning house at top levels is considered important for Yugoslavia as it attempts to break out of a decade of sanctions and international isolation designed to undermine Milosevic.
Kostunica's coalition was also scrambling to assume control over the country's central bank and other federal financial institutions.
A new government should "be able to show up in Brussels and Washington and say: 'the country has democratized ... we ask from you to lift the sanctions,'" said Djindjic, the Kostunica ally.
Both the United States and the European Union have said they will lift sanctions once the new government is in place.
Germany, however, already began sending financial aid. Its Foreign Ministry said yesterday it had given $435,000 to help clear the Danube River, a vital shipping route, of debris from NATO bombing raids last year. The EU is lining up an emergency aid package worth $1.7 billion, according to European Commission President Romano Prodi.
Kostunica, a 56-year-old legal scholar, has promised to return Yugoslavia to "the family of democratic nations," secure a lasting peace and end economic devastation that marked the 13 years of Milosevic's rule.
Still, discord could resurface, at least in parliament.
Kostunica's Saturday night swearing-in at the federal assembly was repeatedly postponed by delaying tactics initiated by Milosevic allies who contested parts of the Sept. 24 vote.
