Jovanović against weekend vote

Jovanović against weekend vote

He is virtually alone in riding against the tide ahead of a weekend referendum on a new constitution designed to reassert the nation's claim over its historic heartland — regardless of international talks on Kosovo's future status.

"We have to accept the reality," Jovanović, 35, said in an interview this week with The Associated Press. "And the reality is that Kosovo has been independent from Belgrade since 1999" when a NATO air war forced Serbia to hand control of the region to a U.N. administration.

"We cannot defend Kosovo from the majority who live there," he said. "Let us show that we are different from the Serbia that went to war with the whole world."

Jovanović, a student leader turned politician, has a long history of being different in deeply conservative Serbia. A close aide of the slain reformist prime minister Zoran Đinđić, Jovanović was deputy prime minister in his early '30s and won international fame when he orchestrated the arrest in 2001 of ex-president Slobodan Milošević.

But the politician has also faced criticism and threats at home for his policies. The latest came on Tuesday when a group of Kosovo Serbs marched to his Belgrade headquarters, shouting insults and calling him "Čeda Šiptar" — a derogatory term the Serbs use for the Kosovo Albanians.

"Such threats are an expression of weakness," Jovanović said. "They want to silence those who are against their policies."

Jovanović's Liberal Party, formed early this year, has been gaining popularity among those disappointed with the slow pace of pro-Western reform in Serbia.

Kosovo is dominated by ethnic Albanians who overwhelmingly favor independence. Serbia's attempt in 1999 to smash the ethnic Albanian pro-independence drive led to a war and prompted NATO to intervene on the side of the separatist rebels.

"Serbia has failed to create an environment that would encourage the ethnic Albanians to accept it as their own country," Jovanović said.

Early this year, the United Nations launched talks to determine Kosovo's future status. That prompted Serbian leaders to hurriedly draft a new constitution that declared the province an "integral" part of the republic, whatever the outcome of the negotiations.

The new constitution needs the approval from more than half of Serbia's 6.6 million voters at the Oct. 28-29 referendum before it can take effect. All the main politicians in Serbia have urged voters to support the constitution.

Jovanović has urged a referendum boycott.

"This referendum and this constitution are an attempt to preserve a failed system of values," he said.