Opposition Objects Vucic Planning to Run for PM, Authorities Claim He Hasn’t Decided Yet

BETAPHOTO/MILAN OBRADOVIC

During the July 29 parliamentary session on the no-confidence vote to the government, opposition MPs objected to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic potentially planning to run for prime minister at the forthcoming elections, after having spent years in power, while the ruling majority MPs claimed that Vucic had not yet made a decision in that regard.

An MP of the Green-Left Front, Dobrica Veselinovic, stated that the ruling majority had made it look as though everyone were against them for decades, with a message to the citizens that “everything will be in order when the Serbian Progressive Party and the Socialist Party of Serbia are no longer in power.”

“We are speaking about the decades in power of one same side. We are not speaking about the term and government of Djuro Macut. It is very interesting that the MPs from the Progressive Party did not speak about the government of Djuro Macut during the past year, but defended the policy of Aleksandar Vucic. That is what we should speak about today and on every other day. The citizens will be asked very soon in the elections if they want this to continue,” Veselinovic stated.

The response came from the whip of the Serbian Progressive Party, Milenko Jovanov, who said that the citizens knew what the situation was like while the previous authorities were in office and that it would be the same if the Progressive Party were to no longer be in power. He went on to say that the president of the republic was limited to two terms in office and that the opposition had been “lying for years” about plans to amend the Constitution so that Vucic could run for another presidential term. “Whether he will be the prime minister or not – that is up to him to decide first and then the people will decide,” Jovanov stated.