SUPPORT FOR hard-line nationalists such as Seselj was supposed to be a thing of the past. Logic would dictate that real post-Milosevic debate in Serbia (which will retain loose federal ties with neighboring Montenegro and formally abandon the name " Yugoslavia " later this year) would tackle the pace and the scope of the country’s reforms.

That debate is occurring in the form of a battle between the slower, steadier approach favored by Yugoslav president Vojislav Kostunica and a faster, more pro-Western approach championed by Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindjic and his favored presidential candidate, the deputy prime minister and economic expert Miroljub Labus. But Serbian nationalism is one of the wedges that once again has forced its way into that debate, altering it significantly.

One can argue that the history of Serbian politics over the last 15 years is a tale of temporarily triumphant coalitions that splinter almost immediately and give way to a grim status quo — or worse. In 1991 and 1997, for instance, Serbia came within striking distance of ousting Milosevic with unified opposition — only to have those coalitions fracture before they finished the job.

At first blush, the 2000 coalition seemed different. For starters, it actually succeeded in removing Milosevic as Yugoslav president. To do so, the opposition tapped Kostunica to spearhead its presidential campaign. His reputation as an incorruptible and fervent opponent of the regime — combined with his solid but mild Serb nationalism — helped him garner the massive public support necessary to rid the country of Milosevic.

Yet many of Kostunica’s former partners now see his nationalist credentials as a liability in pushing the country forward — and view his incorruptibility as inflexibility. Chief among these critics is Djindjic, who wants to stay in power while accelerating unpopular reforms, such as cooperation with the international court in The Hague and hiking utility prices. The rift between Kostunica and Djindjic widened this summer when Djindjic essentially kicked Kostunica’s Democratic Party of Serbia out of the country’s parliament. The prime minister’s supporters argued that the failure of Kostunica’s parliamentary allies to attend sessions and their efforts to block reform forced Djindjic (of the similarly named Democratic Party) to dismiss them, yet the move was widely viewed as a way to preserve and protect the latter’s authority.

However, the fact that Djindjic was able to move with impunity against Kostunica points to the Yugoslav president’s political weaknesses. Not only has Kostunica’s personal popularity fallen over the past two years within Serbia from 70 percent to the mid 30s, but his position as Yugoslav president in a weak federation will also become irrelevant in the near future. Seeing his chance, Djindjic helped push Labus forward as a reform-minded presidential candidate to challenge Kostunica.

Kostunica has had other troubles as well, particularly on the international front. He created waves by openly questioning Yugoslavia’s cooperation with The Hague tribunal and the November 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, which ended the three-sided war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and ensured the country’s territorial integrity by creating two separate entities — a Serb entity and a Croatian/Muslim entity.

Kostunica used the latter issue to attract nationalist-oriented voters in this election. At the beginning of the current campaign, Kostunica opined at a rally in Mali Zvornik that the Serbian part of Bosnia was only " temporarily separated " from Serbia. The Bosnian government — along with Western governments — pounced angrily on his statement, forcing him to backpedal. But judging from the initial round of voting, it worked in his bid for votes.

Kostunica’s opponents have tried to use such statements as a battering ram. After all, Labus and Djindjic have expended massive domestic political capital to secure an end to economic sanctions and to gain entry into global economic institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Moves such as cooperating with international courts, raising the price of electricity, and shutting down factories have made reformers highly unpopular at times.

Portraying Kostunica as a roadblock to joining Europe has been a persistent theme of the Labus campaign. On a sunny afternoon in Republic Square a few days before the first round of voting, a group of Labus’s young supporters invited passersby to take a " Europe Quiz. " Answers that agreed with Labus’s view of European integration (such as favoring cooperation with international financial institutions and adopting European human-rights norms) earned a smiley face, while those that echoed Kostunica’s more inward-looking policies (resisting international justice) received a frown.

Una Mijovic is an affable young Belgrade University law student working the quiz booth. She says that Kostunica was able to force change in 2000 " because he was [a] new face. " But now, argues Mijovic, Kostunica " has shown that he is just not strong enough and willing enough to do what is necessary for reform. "

In the main, Kostunica and his supporters do believe that slower and steadier economic reforms will have less of a negative impact on the country. They also argue that for all of Djindjic and Labus’s appeals for quicker reforms, they have yet to move quickly and decisively against crime and corruption. Kostunica’s supporters label Djindjic a corrupt autocrat — citing his moves against Kostunica’s party in parliament and a host of highly publicized scandals, including a squalid and fractious row over a Serbian government cover-up of a report on the cigarette-smuggling trade, as cases in point.

If the rally held by Kostunica in Belgrade four days before the election was any indication, much of his support stems less from voters favoring his candidacy and more from hatred of Djindjic. The rally was a bloodless affair, enlivened only by lusty booing and whistling at every mention of Djindjic’s name.

And as for Labus? A bumper sticker plastered all over central Belgrade in the days before the vote sums it up succinctly: LABUS = DJINDJIC.

Most observers can read the writing on the wall in the first round of election results. Even if Kostunica — with his milder nationalism and tough talk about crime — attracts only a few of the voters who cast their first ballot for Seselj or others, he should win the second round quite easily.