Serbia votes on constitution under Kosovo shadow

Serbs began voting yesterday in a two-day referendum on a new constitution that declares the breakaway province of Kosovo to be forever part of Serbia.

The ballot is Serbia's first attempt to replace a 1990 constitution adopted under the late President Slobodan Milosevic. The referendum needs 50 per cent of the 6.6 million electorate to vote "Yes" to pass.

An opinion poll last week showed 49 per cent of respondents planned to vote, although many suspected the new constitution - a product of political horse-trading never put to public debate - would change little and have no impact on Kosovo's fate.

Diplomats say the West will most likely give Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority the independence they want and have de facto enjoyed since NATO bombing in 1999 drove out Serb forces that Milosevic had sent to put down a separatist rebellion.

Its 100,000 remaining Serbs will vote in their enclaves, but the two million Albanians are not registered and were ignoring the vote in any case.

"With this constitution we wanted to say... we want Kosovo to remain part of Serbia forever," said pensioner Sveto Dimitrijevic, voting in the Serb monastery town of Gracanica just south of Kosovo's capital, Pristina. "I don't know what the world is thinking when it comes to Kosovo, but they certainly don't know its history."