Candidate for mayor convinced NDS will cross threshold

Candidate for mayor convinced NDS will cross threshold

"We find ourselves in a specific situation, we have no party structure, but we do not care about dividing up (party) offices. We will build the party, because we are people who also built the Democratic Party," said Ranković.

Asked to comment on the fact the full name of the party is "NDS - Zeleni (Greens)", and its formal leader Ivan Karić, until recently the head of the Greens, Ranković said this was "a forma-legal and technical issue," while it was more important what the party - founded recently by Boris Tadić - had to offer politically.

He said his own candidacy was that of "a new man with experience, a professional who knows how to get the job done, given the time he spent at the helm of the Belgrade Land Development Directorate."

"We have four key policy points: jobs, social programs, education, and health. All parties present the same in their manifestos, but creating a business environment is something that we have successfully done already," Ranković asserted.

He believes that "the successes achieved in Belgrade were the result of the work of a team and the monopolization of success is the wrong approach."

Commenting on the "City on the Water" and the Sava Amphitheater projects, Ranković said they were being worked on, in planning documents of the city, "for a long time."

While he believes that "the domestic side were does not have enough qualified people behind the project," he also advised against "arbitrary criticism."

"It would be unprincipled to criticize such a thing, a big investment of several billion euros, the building of 1.8 million square meters, a large number of jobs. However, what raises suspicion is that we did not receive answers some key questions. Who will build the missing infrastructure? Who is going to pay a billion euros to prepare the ground? What is the schedule? This is serious business, and the team making the proposal is not sufficiently qualified," said Ranković.

He added that "no one knows who the SNS candidate for mayor is," but that judging from the statements made by the Progressives' team, "they do not seem ready for such a project."

Speaking about the issue of Belgrade's public transport and collection of fares, Ranković stated that these services "should go back under the authority of the Board of Public Transport."

"We can say that after a month we would make transport cheaper by ten percent. We would work on more on-time, more comfortable and better transport, without dividing citizens into first and second rate. Management and collection cannot be done by a private company," said Ranković.

He declined to answer questions about possible post-election coalitions and whether the NDS saw the Progressives (SNS) as a partner, and commenting on his departure from the Democratic Party said that "everyone had a personal reason, but there are also common places."

"The DS in the last two years abandoned its original principles and values. IUt had a value system that was a mirror to establishm the state system, because the party was the most state-making of them all. However, these principles are gone, and the party has become a party of local reach, in the service of one man's career," said Ranković.