Sapic Says He Is Ready to Join Cabinet

Aleksandar Sapic ((BETAPHOTO/MILAN OBRADOVIC/MO)

Aleksandar Sapic, president of the Serbian Patriotic Alliance, has said he will not decline any invitations he may get for his party to become part of the new cabinet, unless it would mean diverging from its platform goals and his personal principles.

In an interview published by BETA on June 26, Sapic said that, at the June 21 elections, Serbia had chosen "more or less what we had before, and that is the policy the incumbent authorities conducted in the previous period."

He would not reply more specifically when asked what election boycotters chose and got. "You'd have to ask them. I'm the only one who didn't either judge or support the boycott, other than saying I didn't think that was the most purposeful or efficient of solutions. If it were, I would have opted for it myself," Sapic said.

He said there had been no major irregularities at polling stations on election day. "Obviously there are always small irregularities, but they weren't noteworthy compared to some other elections held over the last 20-30 years. It even seems to me that the atmosphere was considerably quieter than in the last two or three election cycles," he said.

Asked whether his party would be in the opposition in the parliament or if he is prepared to be part of the national government, Sapic said he had not entered politics to be in the opposition.

"Broaching that matter is not up to me. If the Serbian Progressive Party, which has two thirds of the seats, invites me to talk on that subject, I will surely respond. But whether something is going to come of it I really can't say now," Sapic said, stressing that he would not abandon the goals of his party's platform.