The leader of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) Ivica Dacic said that the elections announced by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic for the spring should be regular and that there is no reason to call for early elections.
Dacic said on Pink television that the MP’s votes showed that there is no crisis of power and that there is therefore no need for early elections.
“Ivica Dačić is one of the most experienced politicians in Serbia and he certainly sees the political scene much more realistically than others. Also, his political party is more of an interest group than a normal political option and almost everything depends on him being in power,” Dragan Popović, director of the Centre for Practical Politics, has said, commenting on Dačić’s statement that there is no need for early elections.
„I would like to remind you that the SPS was not in power for only three years (2001-2004) since the multi-party system was introduced in Serbia. Aleksandar Vučić, as an authoritarian leader who decides on everything, including elections. He often schedules early elections, thus sending the message that the current situation in the country is not normal, i.e. that there is a danger that only he, portraying himself as a strong leader, can solve with an iron fist and that he is always ready to go the polls which apparently should make his opponents scared,“ Popović explains and adds:
„Dačić, however, is certainly not worried about democracy in Serbia, but only about his own interests. There are several reasons why Dačić is always afraid of early elections. Firstly, Vučić can always decide that he no longer needs the services of the SPS, which would deprive the Socialists of the only thing they care about – power, money and authority. Secondly, elections require significant resources, from human to financial, and only Vučić can be at peace here since he uses unlimited public resources at his disposal.“
„Thirdly, from election to election, we have been witnessing a steady decline of the SPS electorate, which Dačić does not like, and in such political circumstances, there is hardly any room for manoeuvre to reverse this trend. All this together makes the early parliamentary elections very unpopular in Dačić’s eyes“, Dragan Popović concludes.
(Danas, 30.07.2023)
https://www.danas.rs/vesti/politika/zasto-se-ivica-dacic-plasi-vanrednih-izbora/
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