be directly elected instead. He also announced that the presidential and local elections in September would be held simultaneously; the constitution gave the president of Yugoslavia a four-year term, but Milošević organized presidential elections a year before his mandate expired. On 25 August 2000, Stambolić disappeared. Witnesses said that he had been kidnapped and "thrown into a white van" after walking from Košutnjak to a local restaurant. Meanwhile, the DOS coalition formally endorsed Koštunica's candidacy. Dragan Maršićanin claimed that "voters were looking for someone who was a supporter of democracy but also a proven patriot and a nationalist in the kindest sense", and expressed his opinion that Koštunica had the closest such profile. The Yugoslavian economy was struggling at the time of the elections; only a year after the NATO bombing campaign, many of the international sanctions remained in place, and inflation was over 100%. In the winter before the elections, the European Union sent heating fuel to the cities of Niš and Pirot, which were governed by opposition parties. Political scientist Michael Parenti asserted that the EU was ultimately denying such shipments to the remainder of Yugoslavia, offering humanitarian aid only to towns which were not governed by the ruling parties. Some Kosovo Albanians voted for Milošević in hopes that it would lead to the further disintegration of Yugoslavia. This along with voter fraud and strong Kosovo Serb support allowed Milošević to win an absolute majority in the southern province of Kosovo. Presidential candidates Campaign The DOS coalition asked the Serbian Renewal Movement to pull Vojislav Mihailović out of the race and to endorse their candidate, but Mihailović and his party refused. However, he added that if he were not to make it into a second round, that he would support Koštunica over Milošević in a runoff. Koštunica officially began his campaign in the Braničevo District on 30 August 2000. On 2 September, he officially submitted his candidacy to the Federal Electoral Commission. Over the course of his campaign, he emphasized that he would seek the removal of international sanctions on Yugoslavia, return the country to international institutions such as the United Nations, and solve conflicts between the constituent republics of Serbia and Montenegro. Although Milo Đukanović supported Stambolić's bid for the DOS candidacy, he refused to support Koštunica and boycotted the election entirely. Likewise, Vuk Drašković also refused to endorse him. Furthermore, Koštunica occasionally differed from the rest