It is becoming increasingly certain that the last session of the current convocation of the Serbian Parliament will be held in late September and that elections will most likely be called in the spring of 2024, instead of December 2023, Demostat says.
The coordinators of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) have already received instructions to prepare for the parliamentary and local elections in Belgrade in December, Demostat learns unofficially from political sources.
Nevertheless, experts that Demostat contacted for comment note that the practice of the SNS issuing instructions to its branches to “be on standby” for elections has been done several times a year over the last ten years, so the possibility of going to the polls a few months later, i.e. in the spring of 2024, should not be ruled out.
The sources also say that the head of the SNS caucus in the National Parliament, Milenko Jovanov, conveyed at this week’s session that the elections for the National Parliament will be held in December, as well as the Belgrade, adding that “the National Parliament will hold one more session in the current convocation and that would be it”.
The opposition believes that it can defeat the government at the Belgrade elections, writes Demostat and recalls that in April last year, Aleksandar Vučić met with the leader of the Freedom and Justice Party, Dragan Đilas, and promised to repeat the Belgrade elections.
“The fact that Aleksandar Vučić did not comply with the agreement on the timing of the Belgrade election last year, as well as his past habit of announcing certain moves and then abandoning them or doing them after a shorter or longer time period, just shows that it is possible to the vote may not go ahead in December,” writes Demostat.
According to the current Law on the National Parliament, the same deadlines apply for extraordinary parliamentary elections as for regular ones, which means that no less than 45 and more than 60 days can pass from the day the election is announced to the day when it actually takes place.
Parliamentary elections are announced by the president of the state, elections are conducted in Serbia as one electoral unit, by voting for electoral lists and by distributing parliamentary seats in proportion to the number of votes won.
As for the Belgrade election, it is called by the Speaker of the Belgrade Assembly. Belgrade’s mayor is not elected directly by the citizens, but by the City Assembly, by secret ballot. The mayor should get the majority of the total number of councillors.
As in the case of parliamentary elections, no less than 45 days, nor more than 60, can pass from the day local elections are officially called, Demostat explains.
(Novi Magazin, 07.09.2023)
https://novimagazin.rs/vesti/303501-demostat-izbori-moguci-u-decembru-ili-na-prolece
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