BELGRADE, Serbia — A characteristically defiant Slobodan Milosevic staged his political comeback Saturday, winning re-election as leader of his Socialist Party of Serbia and denouncing as a coup the popular uprising that swept him from power last month.
In his first public appearance since he accepted his election defeat and resigned as the Yugoslav president on Oct. 6, a day after the uprising, Milosevic gave an aggressive opening speech to the Socialist Party congress.
"Everybody in this hall knows what kind of violence and lawlessness has taken place since the coup on Oct. 5," he said. "The situation is absurd.
"The biggest defender of the state and national interests is the Socialist Party of Serbia, and that's why the party is the main target of the attacks," he said to long applause.
The party congress was closed to the news media, but film and text of his speech were released to news agencies and foreign reporters outside the congress hall.
The United States, meanwhile, denounced Milosevic's re-election, saying he had negligible popular support and should be punished for war crimes.
"It (the Socialist Party of Serbia) is out of touch with what the Serbian people want and deserve. The Serbian people want to move forward, not backward," a Clinton administration official said.
Milosevic, who exuded confidence as he re-emerged from self-imposed seclusion Saturday, won 87 percent of the votes cast by more than 2,000 delegates at the party congress, according to Zoran Nikolic, a co-justice minister in the transitional government of Serbia and a senior party member.
Saturday's congress was called after the Socialists' resounding defeat in local elections and Milosevic's failure in the race for Yugoslav president on Sept. 24. It falls just a month ahead of Dec. 23 legislative elections in Serbia, where real power lies in the Yugoslav federation.
There has been, leading Socialists said, some fierce internal criticism of Milosevic. But the man who led Serbia into three lost wars and bequeathed his successors a ruined economy was the only candidate proposed for president of a party that he built 10 years ago from the ruins of the League of Communists, which ran Yugoslavia for 45 years after World War II.
Rival candidates for the party leadership were discussed, said Zoran Andjelkovic, the new general secretary of the Socialists, but of the seven people nominated, six refused to run, and one of them quit the party.
Party officials insist that Milosevic remains popular among the rank and file of the 700,000-member Socialists.
In the Sept. 24 presidential election, Milosevic won 30 percent of the vote, compared with just over 50 percent for Vojislav Kostunica, the candidate of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia. Opinion polls now show the Socialist Party with about 10 percent of popular support. Milosevic's personal rating is slipping even lower.
Meanwhile, State Department officials say scheduling conflicts are preventing Secretary of State Madeleine Albright from meeting with Kostunica in Vienna on Monday.
But there are suspicions in European diplomatic circles that Kostunica is less than eager for an encounter with Albright, based on her strong advocacy of the U.S.-led air war over Yugoslavia last year.
The two will be on hand for a conference of European leaders in the Austrian capital.
Albright will address the conference and have a number of bilateral meetings.
Kostunica, who assumed the Yugoslav presidency last month, will sign documents formalizing Yugoslavia's re-entry into the OSCE. Yugoslavia has been suspended from the group for eight years for inciting war.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said earlier that Albright hoped a meeting with Kostunica could be worked out.
Whether Kostunica is eager to meet with Albright is another question. During his campaign for the presidency, he made clear his disapproval of U.S. policy during the Kosovo crisis last year when U.S. and allied aircraft bombed Yugoslavia for more than two months.
Kostunica raised his concerns about that issue again Friday, urging European leaders gathered in Croatia to play a greater role in the Balkans and not defer to a "non-European" power — meaning the United States — as it did last year.
He did not mention the United States by name.
Contributing: Reuters News Service and The Associated Press.