Having failed at meetings in provincial towns, the Serbian opposition has taken another path.

A group of independent experts close to the opposition has published the text of a Pact for Stability of Serbia that urges for the voluntary retirement of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and of the entire leadership, and for the formation of a "transitional government of experts".

The pact says leaders of opposition parties should not be in the government and should stay away from the power struggle for a year.

The transitional government is to start radical economic reforms, join the stability pact for Southeast Europe, settle the relations between Serbia and Montenegro within the Yugoslav federation, and prepare free elections by the end of the government's annual mandate.

The key message of the writers of the Pact for Stability of Serbia is the need for getting Western loans for the post-war rebuilding, which is only possible on the condition that Milosevic goes.

Not only ruling parties oppose this. Opposition blocs, whose ratings have markedly risen over the recent weeks, are also cautious about dumping Milosevic.

Nonetheless, Vuk Draskovic, Zoran Djinjic, and Montenegro's President Milo Djukanovic ostensibly backed the idea of the pact and of the transitional government.

One of the pact's authors, Mladjan Dinkic, said a mass meeting was planned in front of the building of the Yugoslav parliament on August 19, at which supporters of Serbia's radical reforms would demand Milosevic's retirement and the setting up of the transitional government.

However, authorities are playing their own game in this situation. Yugoslav Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic will call a consultative meeting with delegates of all of parties in the parliament on August 5 to discuss with them a new programme of social and economic reforms in Yugoslavia and, expectably, to offer major government posts to representatives of the opposition parties.

Meanwhile, government-controlled mass media have stepped up criticism of opposition activists accusing them of a hand in subversive designs of the United States and NATO that are said to be seeking to topple Yugoslavia's legitimate authorities after failing to do that by NATO's recent outright aggression.

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