Serbia's election commission announced on Thursday evening the official results of Sunday's parliamentary elections, largely confirming the preliminary results.

The right-wing nationalist Serbian Radical Party won 81 seats to remain the strongest party in the 250-seat parliament, but would be unlikely to find willing partners to forge a majority coalition.

Serbian President Boris Tadic's Democratic Party came second with 64 seats. Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia-New Serbia coalition earned 47 seats. The two rival parties will face hard bargaining in the formation of the new government in the next three months.

The reformist G17 Plus party won 19 seats, the late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia 16 seats, and the coalition led by Liberal Democratic Party 15 seats. The remaining eight seats went to ethnic minority parties - three seats to Hungarian, two Muslim, two Roma and one Albanian.

The turnout was 60.56 percent, or 4,029,286 of the 6,653,851 registered voters.

According to the election commission, the official results were based on votes from 8,525 polling stations, or 99.84 percent. The results for the other 14 polling stations were declared null due to irregularities.

Formal discussions of possible coalitions are set to start on Friday, with the EU countries hoping for a so-called democratic coalition government formed by Tadic's and Kostunica's parties.

(Xinhua News Agency January 26, 2007)