A little too close for my comfort

Of course, you can say that my opinion doesn't matter since it's not my country, but then again I suppose you could make that argument about any events outside the borders of the US where we're not directly involved. Like in, I dunno, DR Congo, Cyprus, Sudan, Haiti....

From the Toronto Star for June 28:

A pro-Western reformer defeated a hardline nationalist ally of former autocrat Slobodan Milosevic in a run-off election for Serbia's president yesterday.

Boris Tadic received 53.7 per cent of the vote, while Tomislav Nikolic got 45 per cent, the state electoral commission said. Turnout was 48.5 per cent, about the same as in the first round of voting two weeks ago.

It's not that I'm glad a "pro-Western reformer" won, it's that I'm not glad that an extreme right-winger who before the election said he would dedicate a victory to the ousted strongman and war criminal Milosevic and who after the election

blamed his loss on "almost all Serbian politicians and the West for spreading fear" among voters

did so well.

"This election has shown that Serbia knows how to recognize a historic moment," Tadic said, celebrating his victory.

It also shows how much is still to be done after an election featuring a turnout that would be embarrassing even for a US presidential election. In fact, the election succeeded only because earlier this year the parliament scrapped a requirement of a 50% turnout for an election to be valid. Three previous presidential elections since 2002 failed to meet that requirement.

Nikolic had finished first in the initial voting on June 13, with 30.4% to Tadic's 27.6%. But with no one having gotten a majority of the vote, the runoff was required. Minor parties joined together to support Tadic to head off a possible Nikolic victory.