“I see all members of the governing coalition supporting Aleksandar Vucic and SNS’ candidate for Serbian president as a matter of good manners. Whoever doesn’t want to support the candidate, should step down from the government”, says Zorana Mihajlovic, Deputy PM and an SNS official.
She says that any other decision by the partners of SNS would be interpreted as them wanting to campaign for their own candidate while ignoring Vucic and the popularity of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).
“In that case, gentlemen, please leave the government because it is not right if you campaign against the candidate chosen by the Prime Minister while working in his cabinet. Just to clarify, I am not referring to myself here because I have said on numerous occasions that nobody has ever offered me to do something like that, nor did we (in SNS) ever discuss such option”, Mihajlovic outlines.
The Head of the Serbian Socialist Party (SPS), Ivica Dacic has confirmed that the two parties are contemplating the idea of having a joint candidate. “This is a complex issue and it all depends on the stand that the governing coalition will take”, he added.
Executive Director of CESID, Bojan Klacar says that, by considering having the joint candidate, Dacic is trying to maintain good relations with Aleksandar Vucic. “Presidential candidate will definitely come from the ranks of SNS. I think that this could be detrimental to SPS because we are talking about a big political party which would like to have its own candidate”, Klacar adds.
(Blic, 10.10.2016)
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