Word: fraud
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...opposition gambled too. The cautious Kostunica thought Milosevic's lust to retain his aura of legitimacy might force the President to give up if the legal bodies ruled the "official" vote count a fraud. So he refused to participate in the Milosevic-ordained runoff. Kostunica resolutely insisted he was already President-elect, and he was backed up by an international chorus of support, save only from Moscow. He risked losing again if the runoff took place without him on Oct. 8, leaving Milosevic to claim a technical victory. But Kostunica grew visibly in stature as he stuck to his sense...
What helped bring others out by the hundreds of thousands was Milosevic's miscalculation. His handpicked constitutional court put out an inflammatory ruling Wednesday night. There had indeed been, they said, fraud in the Sept. 24 election, and some official results were annulled. That seemed to imply that a whole new election was required and Milosevic could happily stay in power until his term ended in July. Such a slap in the face of legitimacy--even the sham variety normal in Yugoslavia--practically invited voters to overthrow Milosevic...
Last week Kostunica was only a hopeful President-elect. While his supporters filled the streets shouting that Milosevic was finished, their nemesis still sat in his White Palace, as Belgrade dubs his official seat of power. He's used vote fraud, trumped-up crises and constitutional finagling to stay in power before. Serbs were finally brave enough to cast their votes against him. To get him out of his palace for good, they may have to take his power into their own hands...
...doily beneath an espresso served to a guest at Benjamin Netanyahu's office still bears the inscription "Prime Minister of Israel." After Israel's Attorney General, Elyakim Rubinstein, decided last week not to prosecute the former Prime Minister for fraud, many political observers are betting Netanyahu will soon be able to order a new stock of those paper coasters. The man who 16 months ago quit politics after an electoral pummeling is now cast by right-wingers as the only leader who can prevent Prime Minister Ehud Barak from making too many concessions to the Palestinians...
...Milosevic essentially used opposition complaints of electoral fraud to achieve a result that annuls their own victory. The ruling by the country's highest constitutional authority, which has the last word on the matter, requires Milosevic to hold another election six months from now at the earliest - and besides giving him plenty of time to change electoral laws and invent more elaborate forms of cheating, it also entirely discounts the 10-point victory that even the official results had given Kostunica in the first round. But all of that may be academic now that the opposition has moved to claim...