Opposition Official Aleksic Says There's No Argument for Election Boycott

MIroslav Aleksic (BETAPHOTO/MILAN OBRADOVIC)

The Serbia Against Violence coalition had failed to convince voters that an election boycott would be a good option as electoral conditions for the June 2 vote could not be worse than on Dec. 17, 2023, the People’s Movement of Serbia leader and a member of the Serbian parliament, Miroslav Aleksic, said on April 30.

Aleksic, whose party was a member of the Serbia Against Violence coalition under the scheduling of the upcoming elections, told Belgrade daily Nova that it was not right to boycott only the Belgrade local election, noting that it would be “futile.”

“If we opt for a political battle, a radical one involving boycotts, it means that we should walk out of all municipal local governments and the Serbian parliament, return our mandates and take to the streets to battle,” Aleksic said.

Noting that election chances for the opposition were good in Belgrade, Aleskic said that boycotting the vote would mean “handing the capital city on a silver platter to the incumbent regime.”

A coalition comprising the People’s Movement of Serbia, the Green-Left Front, the Democratic Party, the Free Citizens Movement, the Ecological Uprising, and the New Face of Serbia party will run in the upcoming elections in Serbia’s capital, while other members of the Serbia Against Violence coalition have decided to boycott the vote.

Among the opposition groups not running in the Belgrade election scheduled for June 2 are the two parties of the NADA (HOPE) coalition - the New Democratic Party and the Movement for the Restoration of the Kingdom of Serbia.