Serbia's pro-Western president declares victory in elections

"This is a great day for Serbia," Boris Tadic proclaimed after an independent monitoring group that carried out a parallel vote count nationwide said his bloc won 39 percent -about 10 percent more than the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party.

"The citizens of Serbia have confirmed Serbia's European path," he said. "Serbia will be in the European Union. We have promised that, and we will fulfill that."

But Tadic said he wasn't celebrating, because his nationalist rivals could still team up against his Coalition for a European Serbia and try to form Serbia's next government.

"I'm sure that those who wanted to return Serbia to the 1990s will try to overturn the electoral will of the people, but I will not allow it," he told supporters, adding that he would propose a new prime minister from his own bloc.

"I'm getting ready for tough negotiations on the next government ... those talks will not be easy," Tadic said as thousands of his supporters waved party and EU flags and honked horns in central Belgrade.

Tadic's opponents said their own vote tabulations confirmed the pro-Western forces' victory -an astonishing turnabout after weeks of speculation that the Radicals would sweep to power together with Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's conservative coalition.

Official results were not expected until Monday, but the state electoral commission issued partial results that corresponded to the projections of the Center for Free Elections and Democracy and the tabulations of the main parties.

The respected center, whose representatives observed vote tallying at polling stations across Serbia, said Tomislav Nikolic's Radicals were running a distant second with 28.6 percent, and that Kostunica's bloc had about 11.6 percent. It said the Socialists had about 8.2 percent -their best result since Milosevic's ouster in 2000.

"Let's wait until tomorrow and see what we'll do," said the Socialists' deputy leader, Zarko Obradovic.