People’s Party Leader: Regime Shaken, Vucic Should Be Offered No Outs

Vuk Jeremic (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

People’s Party President Vuk Jeremic has said that the outcome of the elections was far worse than the forecasts based on pre-election polls, claiming that said opinion surveys indicated that the United for the Victory of Serbia coalition would win over 25 percent of votes in the parliamentary election and that there would also be a second round of presidential elections.

“The People’s Party was not in a position of command but we will not publically point a finger at anyone. Within the coalition, we will talk behind closed doors about who led the campaign, who independently made decisions regarding the candidates and how a campaign should be led,” Jeremic said in an interview for NewsMax Adria, his party announced in the evening of April 12.

During the pre-election campaign, Freedom and Justice Party President Dragan Djilas stated that his party’s pollsters gathered data indicating that the United for the Victory of Serbia coalition would win 27 percent of ballots, while the coalition’s presidential candidate Zdravko Ponos would win 28.5 percent. In reality, the coalition took 13 percent of votes, while Ponos took 18 percent, the statement said.

Jeremic was further quoted as saying that, despite the outcome of the election, “the regime is clearly shaken” leading to an “every-man-for-himself-like” atmosphere in both the state Parliament and the Belgrade City Assembly. He also emphasized that, with regards to the election for the capital’s local government which took place nine days ago, the City Electoral Commission has still not announced the results of the vote and that 11 percent of ballots are still under review.

Commenting on the meeting between Serbian Progressive Party President Aleksandar Vucic and Freedom and Justice Party leader Dragan Djilas, Jeremic said that Vucic should not be offered “a way out.” “If we entered the elections saying that we were fed up with a privatized state and having one man make all the decisions himself, then let’s not act like he does and [now] offer him a way out,” Jeremic concluded.