Some of Serbia's newspapers have expressed surprise at the strong showing of ultra-nationalist Vojislav Seselj in Sunday's presidential election first round.

Most hailed the election as fair, but some papers thought they detected polling irregularities.

Glas Javnosti said the fact that Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica and Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus appeared to have won most votes was a predictable outcome.

Provisional results

Vojislav Kostunica - 31% Miroljub Labus - 28% Vojislav Seselj - 22%

The biggest surprise, the paper said, was Mr Seselj had won twice as many votes as expected.

Another paper, Ekspres, wondered who would benefit most from Mr Seselj's votes.

Giving a round-up of reactions by the presidential candidates, Vecernje Novosti concluded that the "victor is democracy".

The paper described the 56% per turnout as "sufficient", but wondered what might happen in the run-off, due to take place in two weeks' time. It predicted that many voters might abstain.

Most papers agreed that there were no major hitches and that the poll was fair and democratic.

Danas and Politika gave a full-page round-up based on reports by correspondents from various polling stations.

Both dailies noted the poor election turnout in Kosovo and southern Serbia.

But Nacional newspaper dissented, saying considerable electoral irregularities had marked the first round.

The paper quoted one unofficial electoral monitoring body as saying that "entire streets and districts" where support for Mr Labus was lowest were simply removed from electoral lists.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.