Janez Drnovsek

Voters in Slovenia went to the polls to choose a successor to Milan Kucan, the only president the Balkan country has known since it gained independence in 1991. They chose long-serving Prime Minister Janez Drnovsek, who has led the former Yugoslav republic closer to the West. He won about 56% of the vote, while prosecutor Barbara Brezigar, a political novice who campaigned on a message that her country needs new leadership, got 43.7%. Kucan was ineligible for reelection under the constitution.

Slovenia's prime minister, who has pushed to align the tiny Alpine nation closer with Western Europe, finished first in a presidential election but will have to face a runoff vote. Janez Drnovsek won support with a pragmatic style but fell short of the 50% needed to win outright in Sunday's vote. Drnovsek, 52, who won 44.4% of the vote, will face prosecutor Barbara Brezigar, who got 30.8%, in a runoff Dec. 1. The winner will replace Milan Kucan, barred by law from another term.

Slovenia continues its low-profile efforts to seek greater integration with Western Europe when the country's prime minister, Janez Drnovsek, visits North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters here Wednesday to sign the alliance's Partnership for Peace framework document. The move marks the first such link between the Western Alliance and a country that was once part of Yugoslavia.

According to partial results, Prime Minister Janez Drnovsek's center-left Liberal Democratic Party won the most votes in the country's second general election since independence from the former Yugoslav federation. With 82% of the votes counted, the Liberal Democrats had 27.1%. Drnovsek, 46, has been credited with securing a stable democracy and prosperous economy during his four-year term. Right-wing parties increased their share of the vote: the rightist People's Party had 19.

Participants at the conference on Yugoslavia in The Hague are: * Chairman: Former British Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington.

Slovenia slid into political crisis Saturday as Prime Minister Janez Drnovsek's government collapsed after failing to win approval for his new Cabinet. Drnovsek was seeking parliament ratification for a Cabinet reshuffle after his junior coalition partner, the Slovenian People's Party, pulled out of his government.

The government on Thursday deployed troops, tanks and warplanes in Yugoslavia's Kosovo province, where six more ethnic Albanians were killed in fierce clashes verging on civil war. Belgrade Radio said Yugoslav President Janez Drnovsek will visit Kosovo today. Troops roamed the Serbian-controlled province on Thursday, the official Tanjug news agency said, and air force jets flew low over the provincial capital, Pristina.

Federal President Janez Drnovsek visited Kosovo province Friday and appealed for an end to violence that has cost the lives of at least 21 ethnic Albanians in 10 days. He said the ethnic unrest threatens political and economic reform in Yugoslavia, which is trying to transform itself from a Communist nation to a Western-style democracy with a market economy. Riot police used tear gas to disperse about 200 demonstrators in Pristina, capital of Kosovo, while Drnovsek met with provincial officials.

WASHINGTON -- Underscoring the importance of the U.S. military alliance with Europe, Congress sent President Bush a bill he wanted Friday that endorses an expansion of NATO and authorizes security assistance for seven nations that hope to join. "The Cold War may be over, but the security and welfare of America and Europe are very closely linked," said Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Senate approved the bill Friday, 85 to 6.

Former Slovenian President Janez Drnovsek, who helped lead his nation to independence from Yugoslavia and later enthralled many of his countrymen by adopting a New Age lifestyle, died Saturday, his office said. He was 57. Mild-mannered but resolute, Drnovsek became a political icon in part by working to keep violence at a minimum when Slovenia gained independence in 1991. He later led the country to European Union and NATO membership.