Milivojevic: If All Elections Take Place the Same Day by Year’s End, Opposition Has No Chance

Cvijetin Milivojevic (Photo: YouTube)

Cvijetin Milivojevic, a political analyst, said on Sept. 18 that the only opportunity to come out of the political deadlock was to hold an early vote in Belgrade by the end of the year, and regular local, provincial and early parliamentary elections next spring.

Milivojevic said to a BETA journalist that if Belgrade’s and parliamentary polls were held the same day, by the end of the year, “the opposition stands no chance,” even in the Belgrade vote. Yet, if a local election was held in Belgrade only, “the opposition might be given an opportunity to capitalize on what it should have capitalized on last year.”

Milivojevic said that in every state in Europe, including the candidate countries in the neighborhood, local and parliamentary elections were held separately, but the authorities in Serbia preferred to hold them together to “kill as many birds as possible with one stone,” and the opposition, “knowingly or unknowingly, takes part in the conspiracy against its fellow citizens.”

The Green-Left Front’s MP, Radomir Lazovic, said for BETA that the opposition refused to play a guessing game regarding the election day, following Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s announcement that the new elections might be called by the end of the year, and held on March 4, 2024, explaining that the opposition had made a very clear request, that early polls in Belgrade and an early parliamentary vote should take place before the end of the year.

The People’s Party whip, Stefan Jovanovic, said that Vucic responded to a fabricated request that the elections should take place on March 4, 2024, which no one had asked for, and that what his party believed was more important than the actual date was “what kind of a platform it can offer to the people, how to protect national interests and improve living standards.””