TO the average Belgrader Serbia's President Slobodan Milosevic was, until recently, a grey haired man frequently pictured sitting on a couch with a visiting dignitary. The "state sofa" became the best known piece of furniture in a land governed by what is known to most of its citizens as "The Regime
As a regime, Milosevic's rule has borne a close resemblance to its totalitarian predecessors at home and abroad. There is a political police, the Drzavna Bezhednost, which has replaced the old communist UDBA. Power is mythically shared between the Socialist Party of Milosevic and the Yugoslav United Left led by Mira Markovic, who happens to be Milosevic's wife.
Socialism with a human face is preached by the president old fashioned communism by the president's wife. In practice, however, the couple and their close associates have acted in a patently capitalist fashion. Large personal fortunes have been amassed and, less than - patriotically, placed outside the country, notably in Cyprus.
But the regime differs from conventional dictatorships in other respects.
Milosevic did not seize power by force. He was elected to his position, somewhat democratically. Opposition parties are allowed at least to exist, though tolerance wears thin when they start to win elections.
Local election victories by the opposition Zajedno (Together) coalition and the huge street protests which greeted their annulment have amounted to a challenge to Milosevic's authority, something to which he is distinctly averse.
This has caused him to leave the "state sofa" and take to the streets himself, to the tumultuous applause of tens of thousands of supporters, bussed into the capital.
Now, however, he faces the biggest challenge of his political career, not from the students and opposition supporters who have marched in their hundreds of thousands, but from the Organisation for Security and Co operation in Europe (OSCE) which yesterday announced the results of its investigation into the annulment of the local elections in Serbia in which Zajedno won control of 15 out of 18 cities and towns.
The opposition's claims, according to former Spanish prime minister Felipe Gonzalez who led the OSCE team, were true. The will of the Serbian people had been illegally overturned.
President Milosevic is in a quandary. It was he who called for the OSCE inquiry and, although he strenuously denies it, the election results were overturned at his request. He faces the following choices reinstate the results; call new elections; or brazen it out and order the state controlled media either to pour scorn on the OSCE, as a "western organisation determined to destroy Yugoslavia, or not to report the results of the inquiry.
What Milosevic is least likely to do is to resign as Serbian President and hand over power to Zajedno. That course of action would be completely out of character.
Communists who have made remarkable, almost miraculous, conversions to nationalism, limited democracy or, in Central Asia, Islamic fundamentalism, usually have one important factor in common: an insatiable lust for power.
In Milosevic's case the preferred conversion was a complex one from Yugoslav communism to Serbian nationalism; a shift from red to white while claiming to have remained red in order to maximise support.
His espousal of the Serbian nationalist cause when ethnic tensions broke into conflict between majority Albanians and minority Serbs in Kosovo in 1989 gained him popularity among his compatriots. But it also provided the spark which set the Yugoslav tinder alight and brought war to the heart of Europe for the first time in 50 years.
Milosevic became president later that year and expanded his role to become the champion of Serb minorities throughout Yugoslavia. The consequences were horrific.
His personal contribution to the series of vicious conflicts has been internationally recognised. He was named by the US State Department, in 1992, along with other leading Serbian and Croatian politicians as a possible war criminal who could face trial for his actions.
International sanctions were imposed on Serbia and Montenegro on May 16th, 1992, because of Belgrade's, and therefore Milosevic's, role in the war in Bosnia.
But since the Dayton agreement which has brought about a cessation of hostilities in Bosnia, Milosevic is not longer an international pariah. He is seen as an important pillar in the peace settlement. Should he be toppled by his people, support for Dayton might not be guaranteed.
Of the three Zajedno leaders, Zoran Djindjic has previously supported the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadjic; Vuk Draskovic's politics are swayed by an extremely emotional personality; and, Vesna Pesic, a truly democratic, antiwar politician, has little popular support.
For this reason Milosevic considers himself to be in a strong position as a guarantor of peace. Neither is he worried by threats of new sanctions. Firstly, these could be counterproductive, harming the people rather than "the regime" and turning them away from their westward, democratic path. Secondly, any attempt to impose them is likely to be vetoed at the UN Security Council by the Russian Federation.
There are some who believe Milosevic's reign will end next year with the Serbian presidential elections. He will then have served two terms and the constitution precludes a third. Others see him being appointed President of the Yugoslav Federation along with the granting of unprecedented powers to that previously ceremonial post.
Ironically, the most likely route away from power is the one which brought him authority in the first place: a resumption of ethnic conflict in Kosovo or elsewhere. The Serbian people don't want another war. The legless beggars in downtown Belgrade are a constant reminder of the last one.
