BELGRADE, March 26 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The leadership of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s ruling Progressive Party (SNS) said it wanted a snap election to test its popularity a year ahead of schedule and after months of opposition protests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We did not make a formal decision about early elections, but (the party) presidency decided, with me abstaining, that it wants an early vote. We are closer to early elections than before,” Vucic told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said that SNS party leadership informed Prime Minister Ana Brnabic – who was handpicked by Vucic – about its decision. Under the provisions of the constitution Brnabic’s government must first resign to allow Vucic to set the date for the vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Elections will be either in June or spring next year,” Vucic said. “I am authorised by the presidency to enter talks with our coalition partners about the date.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last parliamentary elections in Serbia, a candidate for European Union membership, were held in 2016. The SNS-led coalition and its partners led by Socialist Party enjoy a comfortable majority of 160 deputies in the 250-seat parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to recent polls, Vucic could secure support of around 44 per cent of electorate, while the opposition is trailing far behind with around 12 per cent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vucic, a former nationalist who later embraced pro-European values, first came to power in 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Alliance for Serbia (SZS) a grouping of more than 30 parties, started weekly protests in December, accusing Vucic and his allies of cronyism and corruption, violence and stifling media freedom. He denies this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier this month, protesters stormed the offices of the state-run RTS TV and a day later they blocked the presidency building in Belgrade city centre. Eighteen protesters have been detained. — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BELGRADE, March 26 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The leadership of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s ruling Progressive Party (SNS) said it wanted a snap election to test its popularity a year ahead of schedule and after months of opposition protests. “We did not make a formal decision about early elections, but (the party) presidency decided, with me abstaining, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[209],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16302"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}