Croatian President Sees Only Modest Success in Elections

ZAGREB, Croatia â€”  President Franjo Tudjman will depart for peace talks in the United States this week without a clear popular mandate to pursue a tough line against Serbs.

Weary of corruption and the poverty of war, voters gave Tudjman’s party only 44% of the vote in weekend elections, despite the popularity of his government’s recent battlefield successes against rebel Serbs.

“This could make him more reasonable,� Jelena Lovric, a Zagreb political analyst, said Monday.

Under a complex apportionment system, Tudjman’s ruling Croatian Democratic Union was expected to keep control of Parliament, but without the two-thirds majority it needs to amend the constitution.

Half a dozen opposition parties did better than expected, especially in Zagreb, the capital and home to a quarter of Croatia’s 4.2 million people. Tudjman opponents got two of the four Zagreb seats in the 127-member Parliament.

Leaders of Tudjman’s party had said they hoped to increase the president’s power.

Tudjman called the elections nine months ahead of schedule to exploit successful army offensives in May and August that ran rebel Serbs out of territory they seized in Croatia’s 1991 war of secession from the Yugoslav federation.

In campaign speeches, Tudjman repeatedly threatened force to retake Eastern Slavonia, the last slice of Serb-held territory along the eastern border with the rump Yugoslavia.

Serbs agreed in principle to cede control of land, but talks faltered over the length of a transition period.

Alarmed by Tudjman’s threats, U.N. and U.S. diplomats have warned him not to attack. Such a move could draw in the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army and wreck the U.S.-mediated peace talks.

Observers say Tudjman’s comparatively modest success could temper his saber rattling and boost the chances of U.S.-led negotiations that begin Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio. The key players besides Tudjman are presidents Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia.

It “can only benefit the talks,� Lovric said. “Tudjman’s self-confidence is now bound to deflate . . . raising the chances of peaceful re-integration� of Eastern Slavonia.