BELGRADE, Dec 23 (Hina) - A ban on electioneering will go into force in Serbia on Thursday, December 25, ahead of parliamentary elections to be held on Sunday, December 28, when some 6.5 million voters will choose between 19 parties
and coalitions.
BELGRADE, Dec 23 (Hina) - A ban on electioneering will go into force in
Serbia on Thursday, December 25, ahead of parliamentary elections to
be held on Sunday, December 28, when some 6.5 million voters will
choose between 19 parties and coalitions.#L#
A total of 4,144 candidates will be running for 250 seats in
parliament. For a party or a coalition to enter the parliament, it
must win at least five percent of the vote.
The entire country is one constituency and Serbian citizens who will
happen to be outside the country during the elections will not be able
to vote in embassies and consulates of Serbia and Montenegro.
According to polls, only a few parties and coalitions will pass the
election threshold. Those are the list of the Democratic Party of the
late Serbian Premier Zoran Djindjic, which is headed by Serbia and
Montenegro's incumbent Defence Minister Boris Tadic. The first
candidate on this list is the President of Serbia and Montenegro,
Dragoljub Micunovic. Also expected to enter the parliament are the
Radical Party of Vojislav Seselj, the Democratic Party of Serbia of
Vojislav Kostunica, the G17 Plus-Miroljub Labus list, the coalition of
the Serb Revival Movement of Vuk Draskovic and the New Serbia party of
Velimir Ilic, and possibly the Socialist Party of Serbia of Slobodan
Milosevic.
Minorities, which are disadvantaged because they, too, must pass an
election threshold of five percent, are gathered mostly in two
coalitions. The one is "Together for Tolerance - Canak, Kasa, Ljajic",
which is comprised of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina, the
Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians, the Democratic Party of Sandzak, the
League for Sumadija and another 11, mostly minority parties. The other
coalition is "The Reformists of the Social Democratic Party of
Vojvodina and Serbia, Miodrag-Mile Isakov", which, according to
estimates, will not pass the election threshold.
As many as four indictees of the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague
are among the candidates running in the elections. Two of them,
Slobodan Milosevic and Vojislav Seselj, are already in The Hague.
Another one is Nebojsa Pavkovic, the recently indicted former
chief-of-staff of the Army of Serbia and Montenegro, who heads one
election list in coalition with Branislav Ivkovic, a renegade member
of Milosevic's Socialists. The fourth indictee is the incumbent head
of the Serbian Interior Ministry's department for public security,
Sreten Lukic, who heads the list of the Liberal Party of Serbian
Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic.
(Hina) rml sb