Man Of The Hour

By Romesh Ratnesar

He had not prepared for this moment, and a part of him despaired of standing at the center of it. But as he stepped onto the balcony of Belgrade's city hall last Thursday night, with the parliament building smoldering nearby and thousands of supporters gathered in the darkness beneath him, Vojislav Kostunica surely felt the weight of history. He still had to say something, summon words that could calm the restive crowd in Belgrade as much as inspire them. How would he describe the revolution that had just unfolded? What could he say to assure them that after 13 years of repression and misery, the long night had passed? Kostunica stood on the balcony, held the microphone and looked out at the throng. At last he spoke. "Good evening, dear liberated Serbia," he said.

The whole nation seemed to roar back. With that greeting, the 56-year-old former law professor did more than herald the regime's demise. He also won for the moment the hearts of the Serbian people who had given him their votes two weeks earlier. Kostunica's ability to unite the fractious Serbian opposition and defeat Slobodan Milosevic at the polls was an astonishing political feat, but even his allies wondered whether the taciturn scholar had it in him to lead a popular revolt. He did. Kostunica didn't want events to be settled in Belgrade's streets, but once the revolution started, his simultaneous exhortations for freedom and peace helped ensure that it remained bloodless. True to form, Kostunica displayed little emotion during the tumult. And as the uprising abated, he assumed the duties of head of state with such purposeful dispatch that an inauguration seemed anticlimactic. Analysts in Belgrade termed the overthrow of Milosevic "a miraculous event," but the ease with which Kostunica embraced his historic calling was something of a miracle too.

His determination to remain close to the people was disarming. "You are staying here with me," he told them Thursday night. "I'm staying here with you." On Friday night Kostunica appeared on Serbian state television and took calls from viewers, Larry King-style. He pledged that he would not move to the presidential residence, known as the White Palace, preferring to stay in his cramped Belgrade apartment. He said last week he will not serve his whole five-year term but plans to call for new parliamentary and presidential elections in 18 months, after which he will step aside. "I think it's a nice change from my predecessor," he said, with typical understatement. For now, most Serbs are delighted. "We've had our share of charismatic politicians...and look what happened," says Nenad Stefanovic, a local journalist. "One thing we haven't tried yet is a normal, decent man on top."

Kostunica, who founded his tiny Democratic Party of Serbia eight years ago, has proved to be a shrewd politician in tune with the public mood. When local opposition supporters defied police efforts to break up a miners' strike in Kolubara on Wednesday, Kostunica raced to the scene in time to rally a cheering crowd of 10,000. In public appearances throughout the week, he referred to himself as Yugoslavia's President-elect, and while he said, "I don't like the word revolution," he recognized that ordinary Serbs would determine the outcome. Even before Milosevic's concession, Kostunica established his authority by setting up a crisis committee to ensure that the government continued to function during the transition.

Now comes the hard part. The Serbian economy is a shambles, and even the lifting of sanctions by the U.S. and the European Union won't help it recover anytime soon. An encouraging sign is Kostunica's free-market economic platform, drafted by a group of progressive, West-leaning economists. To push through reforms, Kostunica will rely heavily on the Democratic Opposition of Serbia, a conglomerate of 18 parties whose leaders disagree about almost everything. To maintain his majority in the federal parliament, he will have to work with former Milosevic supporters from Montenegro's Socialist People's Party, while protecting against mischief stirred up by Milosevic loyalists in the military and secret services.

Kostunica has vowed that the new government's first priority will be to improve relations with Montenegro, the junior republic in the Yugoslav federation. President Milo Djukanovic's pro-Western government boycotted last month's elections and renounced the legitimacy of all federal institutions. Kostunica will have to cajole them back by offering Montenegro increased autonomy. Though he blasts the NATO intervention in Kosovo, Kostunica acknowledges that the U.N. peacekeeping force "will have to stay for a while, and not for a short while." Despite his strong nationalism, Kostunica has shown flexibility on Kosovo's future, calling for "a real dialogue between Serbs and Albanians" and saying that "those who think Serbia cannot exist as a nation without Kosovo are wrong."

Such signs of moderation will hearten diplomats in the U.S. and Europe, who have downplayed Kostunica's frequent attacks on Western policies in the Balkans and his refusal to cooperate with the U.N.'s war-crimes tribunal. "He wants the Serbian people to be proud," Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told TIME, "but he is not an ethnic killer. He is not a former communist, and he believes in the rule of law." And while Kostunica doesn't hide his disdain for U.S. officials, he is eager to normalize relations with the E.U. and join European institutions such as the Stability Pact--which binds members to cooperation and nonaggression--all of which would impel him to blunt his nationalist impulses. Says a hopeful Stojan Cerovic, a columnist at the Yugoslav newsmagazine Vreme: "There's no way anyone will become an aggressor again from Belgrade."

If that's the only legacy Vojislav Kostunica leaves behind after his 18 months in office, it will count as a historic contribution to European stability. For Serbs, Kostunica has already secured his place in history by defeating Milosevic and giving power back to the people. But by rising to the moment, above all expectations, Kostunica gave something to the rest of the world too. He reminded us that a humble man can still become a hero.

--Reported by Dejan Anastasijevic/ Belgrade and Massimo Calabresi/Washington

With reporting by Dejan Anastasijevic/ Belgrade and Massimo Calabresi/Washington