RULING ENABLES MILOSEVIC TO KEEP GRIP ON BELGRADE.

Byline: Mark J. Porubcansky Associated Press 

The Serbian Supreme Court on Sunday ruled against opposition parties who say Slobodan Milosevic robbed them of an election victory in Belgrade, a verdict likely to ignite stronger protest by thousands of demonstrators bent on driving Milosevic from power.

The opposition reported that eight protesters were arrested over the weekend, making 40 in the past week. One of those arrested was badly beaten, opposition officials said.

Even though Serbia's conflict was deepening, it appeared that Milosevic was more likely to be headed for a long struggle of tactics and politics rather than turning police loose on demonstrators.

Radomir Lazarevic, the chief of the Belgrade election commission, told reporters that the Supreme Court had rejected appeals that would have reinstated election victories in Belgrade.

The court did not give reasons for its ruling, Lazarevic said. The Belgrade election commission's appeal dealt only with the capital city, but did not bode well for appeals of nullifications of elections in other cities.

When the commission appealed on Thursday, the opposition assumed it would give Milosevic an opportunity to defuse the daily protests that regularly bring 100,000 people onto the streets.

They are the largest and most sustained protests against Milosevic since he came to power in 1987.

On Sunday, 100,000 people were on the streets again. Former French culture minister Jack Lang, a member of the European Parliament, lent them their first significant Western support, declaring that, ``The Serbs are fighting in the name of all peoples who resist dictatorship.''

Lazarevic said the election commission would appeal the Serbian Supreme Court ruling to the federal courts of Yugoslavia, the federation of Serbia and small Montenegro.

Milosevic's opponents said the issue was no longer who ran Belgrade, but who ran Serbia.

``What will prevail: the people's determination or Milosevic's patience?'' asked Zoran Djindjic, leader of the opposition Democratic Party.

``This is an uprising to win democracy,'' he told the crowd. ``It's no longer important whether he would revoke the decisions which robbed us of our victory.''

Vuk Draskovic, another opposition leader, added: ``There is just one aim now: resignation of the head of state.''

He said Serbs faced a simple choice: dignity or slavery. ``We are not ready to be slaves,'' he said.

Kati Marton, the chairwoman of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said she met Milosevic on Saturday and offered him a proposed statement. The document asked for his pledge to abide by freedom of the media on issues like news reporting, advertising and licensing.

``I handed him that manifesto, which he proceeded to tear up,'' she told reporters Sunday.

She said she took one of the pieces, and wrote in longhand another statement that Milosevic did sign, pledging to support ``the right to publish and broadcast here freely.''