Serbian electoral commission declares Sunday'spoll valid

The Serbian electoral commission says Sunday's fourth attempt to elect a president was valid, and it has declared the candidate of the governing Socialists, Milan Milutinovic, the victor.

The commission said preliminary figures showed that just over half the electorate voted, passing the necessary legal minimum.

The losing candidate, the extreme nationalist, Vojislav Seselj, challenged the figures.

He accused the Socialists of casting tens of thousands of bogus votes.

His Radical Party called for an investigation, saying it had evidence that one hundred thousand bogus votes were cast in the province of Kosovo alone, where the largely ethnic Albanian population traditionally boycotts elections.

The BBC Belgrade Correspondent says the Socialists' win means that their leader, the Serb president of the Yugoslav Federation, Slobodan Milosevic, can now rule unhindered in the region.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service