PRESIDENT Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia caved in yesterday after eight weeks of massive daily opposition-led protests and handed control of Belgrade and another key town to his opponents.
Acting for the embattled president, the government-controlled Belgrade electoral commission issued a ruling that the opposition had won the most seats in the Belgrade city council in November elections.
The commission in the southern town of Nis, Serbia's second largest town, also handed victory to the opponents of the Milosevic regime. Both rulings were seen as paving the way for an end to the ruling party's monopoly on power and gave the opposition control of seven major towns.
The ruling also gives the opposition a slice of control over the state-run media.
Hundreds of thousands of Serbians have taken to the streets daily since the November 17th elections to press the rigidly controlled government of Mr Milosevic to recognise that the Together coalition opposition - a loose alliance of nationalist and democratic forces - had triumphed in 14 towns and cities.
However, the loss of Belgrade and other towns - the first noncommunist victory in Serbia's capital since 1945 - was a blow which the Serbian leader was for eight weeks unwilling to admit.
The ruling was announced by the president of the election commission, Mr Radomir Lazarevic, who told reporters that Together had won 60 of the 110 seats in the Belgrade city council, against 23 seats for the Socialists, with the remainder split between smaller parties or undecided.
Welcoming the ruling, one of the key opposition leaders, the fiery nationalist Mr Vuk Draskovic, said: "If it's true, then it is the first step of the Serbian government towards sanity."
Demonstrations would continue until all opposition wins were acknowledged, he said, in a reference to the seven results not yet acknowledged.
"We will continue with our peaceful demonstrations until Milosevic and his regime reinstate all the election results," he said.
Mr Draskovic's allies are Mr Zoran Djindjic, another politician who has flirted with extreme nationalism, and Ms Vesna Pesic, a more moderate liberal democrat. On a visit to Paris yesterday, Ms Pesic said she believed there would be fresh protests in Belgrade today despite the latest concessions.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) ruled last month that the opposition had won Belgrade and other cities.
Washington and a host of European countries demanded Mr Milosevic recognise his defeat.
In the largest demonstration so far, well over 300,000 protesters paraded through Belgrade on Monday the Serb Orthodox New Year.
Despite the deployment of riot police, and the imposition of a ban on opposition marches, the protests have continued, including marches, mass traffic-jams, students giving poetry readings to the police and a riotous performance of whistle-blowing on the streets of the capital every evening.