Little Montenegro hands a large win to a Milosevic rival, raising the risk of a final Yugoslav breakaway

By JAMES WALSH

hortly before dawn on June 1, Milo Djukanovic and his wife strolled into the open-air restaurant of the Crna Gora Hotel in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro. Popping open a magnum of champagne, a jubilant Djukanovic told waiting journalists that his victory the day before in parliamentary elections, a poll heavily monitored by outsiders, was just a beginning. "We have won this battle, but the last one is yet to come," he declared. "And that will be the battle for democratization of Yugoslavia."

That seemed to be a tall order even for a man widely known as Milo the Blade, a nickname honoring his intelligence, not his knife-wielding skills. No matter how successful he proved on home ground in defying Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, Djukanovic's mountainous micro-republic of 630,000 people is still very much Serbia's junior partner in what remains of the Yugoslav federation. Milosevic's military rampage in Kosovo is a vivid reminder of how the uber-Serb is prepared to treat defiance. If nothing else, though, Milo the Blade is managing to cut off the last fig leaf of pluralism covering the nakedness of Serbian aggrandizement. Should Montenegro secede, Milosevic will be President of a state that no longer exists, having Balkanized Yugoslavia to death.

Could Montenegro survive on its own? The prospect is dicey, given the republic's poverty and near-total dependence on Serbia for food, electricity and other vital needs. Those reasons alone were sufficient to keep Montenegrins faithful to Belgrade amid all the strife that ruptured the old Yugoslavia. But allegiance to federalism also carried a price, in the form of Western economic sanctions punishing Milosevic's rampant nationalism. Resentment of the second-hand penalties helped Djukanovic win the republic's presidency late last year. Now he is a darling of Western foreign ministries hoping to circumscribe the Yugoslav President's power. Djukanovic has steered Montenegro toward a market economy and tolerance of minorities: ethnic Albanians and Bosnian Muslims reviled by Serbian propaganda as "Turks."

Milosevic viewed this new rival as enough of a challenge to warrant an attempt at unhorsing him, by way of an orchestrated riot in Podgorica just after Djukanovic's inauguration in January. Fears of a similar tactic arose in the prelude to last week's elections, which Djukanovic's coalition won with 42 of the local parliament's 78 seats. "There were indications that Milosevic was ready to try again," says a Western diplomat. "We believe that our being here made him think twice." The Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe set up a system of spray-marking voters' hands to prevent fraud.

Djukanovic's chief opponent, Momir Bulatovic, had been elevated by Milosevic to the federal premiership to afford extra leverage. The ploy did not work, but Bulatovic's Socialists did win 29 seats--enough, perhaps, to try later to destabilize the new regime. Should push come to shove, some Montenegrins think their beautiful mountains and seacoast could attract plentiful tourism for an independent economy. Says Ljubo Suskavcevic, 51, a sociologist and official in the village of Susunja: "We have fertile land, too--look at this." He points to a banana tree in his garden. "When I planted it last spring, nobody believed it could survive. But last winter was mild, and now it begins to bear fruit." If a banana tree can make it in the Balkans, perhaps Djukanovic has hope as well.