FACTBOX-Tadic, Nikolic face off in Serbia president vote

(Reuters) - Serbia's pro-Western President Boris Tadic faces nationalist challenger Tomislav Nikolic on Sunday in an election that is seen as a referendum on the nation's future.

Here is a brief profile of the two politicians, who last squared off in the 2004 presidential election.

TOMISLAV NIKOLIC

* The tall, solemn 55-year-old has led the Radicals since February 2003 when official party head Vojislav Seselj surrendered to the U.N. tribunal in The Hague to face charges of war crimes in the 1990s.

* Demonised by the West and liberal Serbs as the spiritual heir to Slobodan Milosevic, who led Serbia through a decade of wars and poverty, Nikolic has moved to shed the ultranationalist image with a softer line on national issues and populist pledges to battle corruption and boost living standards.

* He says he will never accept the loss of breakaway Kosovo, whose Albanian majority expects to get independence shortly, but won't lead Serbia to war over it.

* He favours European Union membership but only on Serbia's terms, and is against the country joining NATO, which bombed it to expel its forces from Kosovo in 1999. He wants close ties with Russia, China and the Arab world.

* In May 2007 he was voted to the post of parliament speaker at the height of a political crisis between Serbia's pro-Western parties. International and domestic furore over his election led to him being deposed after five days.

* He won 40 percent of the vote in the first round.