Belgrade, May 12.— A pro-Western party declared victory on Sunday night in closely contested parliamentary elections that were widely viewed as a referendum on whether Serbia would turn toward the West or revert to the nationalism and isolation of the Slobodan Milosevic years.

With 85 percent of the vote counted, the Center for Free Elections and Democracy, an independent monitoring group, said the party of Serbia’s president, Boris Tadic, which wants the nation to join the European Union, had received nearly 39% of the vote.

In a distant second place was Tomislav Nikolic’s far-right Radical Party, which advocates closer ties with Moscow, with about 29% of the ballots. The party of the departing nationalist prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, received about 11% of the vote. About 6.7 million people were registered to vote, including Kosovo’s ethnic Serbs.

“The citizens of Serbia have chosen the European path, and Serbia will be in the E.U.,” said Mr. Tadic, a former psychologist ...

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