news.yahoo.com

Serbia’s incumbent liberals and right-wing opposition were tied for control of the Balkan country on Sunday after knife-edge elections in which the party of late Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic emerged as kingmaker.

The opposition Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) claimed victory and said it would open coalition talks without delay. But the results suggested the liberal Democratic Party, in power since Milosevic’s ouster in 2000, was better placed to find allies for a new government.

The SNS won 24.7 percent, ahead of the Democrats on 23.2 percent, according to a projection by pollsters CESID.

With 16.6 percent of the vote, the third-placed Socialist Party (SPS), once led by Milosevic, will likely cast the crucial vote to decide who forms Serbia’s next coalition government, and is widely tipped to pick the Democrats.