(31 Jan 2008) SHOTLIST
1. Wide of exterior of the RTS (Radio Television Serbia) building where TV debate took place
2. Entrance to RTS building
3. Mid of the people walking on the street
4. Mid of newspaper stand
5. Mid of newspaper headlines
6. Close up of headline reading (Serbian) "Tadic won TV duel"
7. Close up of newspaper headlines
8. Mid of girl walking, reading newspaper
9. Mid of street with billboard showing Tomislav Nikolic
10. SOUNDBITE (Serbian): Vox pop, no name given:
"We have to support democratic forces the way they are. This is what we saw last night and that is Boris Tadic, we need to give him a new mandate and after that we can do something."
11. SOUNDBITE (Serbian): Vox pop, no name given:
"Everyone is promising, however nothing will come out of that."
12. SOUNDBITE (Serbian): Vox pop, no name given:
"EU needs us and we need EU even more. We have been wondering around for 20 years. If we carry on that way we will sink. Everything is clear."
13.SOUNDBITE: Vox pop, no name given:
"I will say my opinion on the election on February 3. Anyway it was fair of Mr. Tadic, however Mr. Nikolic said some ugly things."
14. Close up of billboard with president Tadic
15. Wide of Belgrade street
STORYLINE
Serbia's pro-Western president and his ultra-nationalist challenger clashed on Wednesday night over the future of the country during a television debate ahead of a decisive runoff election next weekend.
A poll released on Wednesday showed the incumbent, Boris Tadic, with a slight advantage over Tomislav Nikolic, an ally of late autocrat Slobodan Milosevic, before the vote on Sunday. But the outcome was too close to call.
The election is considered crucial for Serbia, which will choose whether to press on with Western integration or return to the nationalist past of the Milosevic era, when the country faced international sanctions for fomenting the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
Tadic said the country were faced with choosing between the European Union or isolation.
Nikolic said that Serbia had two roads, one open toward the Russian federation, and the other, which he called "thorny", towards the European Union.
The poll by Belgrade's Centre for Free Elections and Democracy said Tadic would beat Nikolic, leader of the Radical Party, by about 100,000 votes in the election on Sunday.
There are 6.7 million eligible voters in Serbia, 61 percent of whom voted in the first round on January 20, when Nikolic edged Tadic by about 5 percentage points, not enough to avoid the runoff.
CeSID's director, Djordje Vukovic said it was difficult to predict a winner and that the result, would depend on turnout, the last few days of
campaigning and the TV debate on the state channel.
The pollsters, whose predictions have proven reliable in past Serbian elections, said they interviewed 1,573 respondents from across Serbia, except for the breakaway province of Kosovo, and that the margin of error was 2 percentage points.
On Thursday, some Serbs were divided about the election.
"We have to support democratic forces the way they are. This is what we saw last night and that is Boris Tadic, we need to give him a new mandate and after that we can do something," said one man in Belgrade.
Another man was keen on Tadic's leaning towards the European Union.
"EU needs us and we need EU even more. We have been wondering around for 20 years. If we carry on that way we will sink. Everything is clear."
"I will say my opinion on the election on February 3. Anyway it was fair of Mr. Tadic, however Mr. Nikolic said some ugly things," said another woman.
Some didn't show much faith in the future.
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