People’s Party Willing to Talk with Opposition, But Not Vucic

Miroslav Aleksic

Miroslav Aleksic, the vice-president of the People’s Party, has said that his party is willing to talk with anyone in the opposition but will not parley with Serbian Progressive Party president Aleksandar Vucic.

In an interview for the Danas daily, Aleksic stated that talks with Vucic will become an option “only once he and his associates have been held accountable for [their] crime[s] and corruption,” the People’s Party announced late on April 13.

Aleksic also mentioned that his party has opened discussions with every other party that passed the electoral threshold in the local Belgrade vote, in preparation for the announcement of the election results “whatever they may be, and particularly in case of a situation where no one can form the local government.”

According to the People’s Party VP, such negotiations are very important especially because of the “dissonance within the opposition left in the wake of the Djilas-Vucic sit-down.” Aleksic added that the meeting between Vucic and Freedom and Justice Party president Dragan Djilas was not supported by any of the opposition parties that passed the electoral threshold.

Aleksic was further quoted as saying that a meeting had been held within the United for the Victory of Serbia coalition and that more such meetings are to come. None of them, however, will be anything close to “private agreements,” he said.

Asked whether the People’s Party will remain in the United for the Victory of Serbia coalition should Vucic decide to repeat the entire elections for Belgrade’s local government, Aleksic responded that it was too soon to speak of such matters because “the electoral cycle is still not finished.”