Incumbent president of Serbia Boris Tadic won Sunday's presidential election run-off, defeating by a narrow margin nationalist candidate Tomislav Nikolic.

Results show Tadic, who supports Serbia's eventual EU membership edged out Nikolic by a margin of 50.5 percent to 47.9 percent.

Nikolic of the Serb Radical Party (SRS) was an ally of former Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic, supporting closer ties with Russia. He forced Tadic into a runoff in the first round of voting January 20, gathering about 39 percent of the vote and leading on the current pro-western president by 4 percent.

Experts claimed that the Sunday's vote put at stake whether Serbia forged closer ties with Europe or embraced the kind of nationalism that fuelled the wars following the break-up of former Yugoslavia in 1991.

Both Tadic and Nikolic opposed independence for the Kosovo province, with the issue looming over the whole campaign. Tadic has said that Serbia will never recognize independent Kosovo but will still work for integration in the EU.

After the results were announced, the re-elected president addressed his supporters from a balcony of his Democratic Party headquarters, used by opposition leaders during the years of the Milosevic regime in countless protest marches and rallies.

"We are sending a message to our Serbs in Kosovo that we will never let them down. We wish no one evil, we want peace, but we demand that Serbia must be respected," Tadic said to his supporters' loud cheers.

The president thanked the crowd and said the victory has shown Serbia's true face to the world, and the power of its democracy.

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