The respected center, whose representatives observed vote tallying at polling stations across Serbia, said Tadic's bloc had 39 percent. It said the Radicals were running a distant second with 28.6 percent, and that Kostunica's bloc had about 11.6 percent. The Socialists had about 8.2 percent - their best result since Milosevic's ouster in 2000.

The pro-Western coalition's surprisingly strong showing came just three months after protesters outraged by Kosovo's Feb. 17 independence declaration set fire to part of the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade.

That anger had stoked expectations of an electoral backlash and a Radical victory that would have squelched Serbia's efforts to prepare for eventual EU membership. The Radicals had vowed to steer the country away from the West and toward Russia, and openly defy international demands for the arrest of Gen. Ratko Mladic and other fugitive war crimes suspects.

Sunday's elections were the first in Serbia since Kosovo declared independence. Many had expected widespread anger to propel the Radicals to victory, and warned that it could plunge the country into fresh isolation.

Officials said turnout was about 60 percent - lower than in January's presidential elections, but strong for a parliamentary vote.

Voters also cast ballots Sunday in Kosovo, where Serb leaders organized parallel local elections in defiance of international authorities. The U.N. branded the local elections illegal, but did not stop people from voting, and NATO peacekeepers stepped up patrols as a precaution. No incidents were reported.

Kostunica and Nikolic had tried to capitalize on an acute sense of betrayal after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February and gained formal recognition from the U.S., Canada, Japan and key European powers.

Serbs consider Kosovo the heart of their ancient homeland and Serbian Orthodox faith, and their bitterness has nudged the country toward ultranationalists promising to restore bruised national pride.

The nationalists also sought to exploit disenchantment with 30 percent unemployment, rising prices and corruption.

Tadic, who also opposes Kosovo's independence and reiterated Sunday that he would never recognize its statehood, claimed last week that he had received death threats.

He also has been publicly denounced as a traitor for signing a pre-entry aid and trade pact with the EU - a deal that Kostunica and Nikolic contend amounts to blood money in exchange for giving up Kosovo.

Milosevic was ousted by a pro-democracy movement in 2000, and the former leader - who presided over the bloody 1990s breakup of Yugoslavia - died in March 2006 in a prison cell in The Hague, Netherlands, where a U.N. tribunal was trying him for atrocities in the Balkans.

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