Opposition Party’s Leader: Authorities Make a New Movement to Shun Responsibility

Zdravko Ponos(BETAPHOTO/SASA DJORDJEVIC/EV)

The president of the Movement “Serbia Center” (SRCE), Zdravko Ponos, said on March 27 that the people rallied around his movement didn’t join politics to survive, but to make a difference.

Ponos underlined that the way to do it is to run for office in an election, and that a party is the appropriate form. “We are creating a party because we are prepared to take responsibility, and the regime is transforming a party into a movement to shun responsibility for what it has done under the Serbian Progressive Party brand,” Ponos said for the Nova paper, explaining a decision to make Srce a party.

In a comment on allegations that Serbian citizens might vote again by the end of the year, Ponos said that he’d rather expected the next election in a year, next spring to be precise, because the authorities “are not doing very well,” in any aspect, and he “doesn’t believe they would rush into a new vote next autumn.”

“We are not interested in a coalition whose purpose is political survival. A coalition to win is much too early to talk about,” Ponos said, adding that “the opposition can work together on different levels and in different formats.”