There has so far been little or no international reaction to the announcement that a close ally of Slobadan Milosevic has been elected President of Serbia -- despite the fact that international observers have described the whole election process as fundamentally flawed. The Serbian election commission said that after several previous attempts the turnout was fractionally over the required 50%, and that Milan Milutinovic had comfortably defeated the ultra-nationalist Vojislav Seselj. Our diplomatic correspondent, Barnaby Mason, explains the apparent lack of outside interest:

A year ago the prolonged street protests of the Serbian democratic opposition against vote-rigging in the local elections attracted attention around the world and sustained pressure on the government from the United States and other western powers. This time it's different.

The democrats are out of the running in the presidential poll, and the choice in the run-off was between the candidate of Mr Milosevic's Socialist Party and a more extreme Serbian nationalist, Vojislav Seselj. The United States has called him a fascist and said it would not co-operate with him.

So the choice in the eyes of the West had to be for the lesser of two evils, and the victory of Milan Milutinovic means continuity of a familiar policy that the international community has grown used to living with. It means that Mr Milosevic, now President of the rump Yugoslav Federation rather than of Serbia, will continue to run things.