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| Radicals and Democrats top elections |
| 22 January 2007 | 07:38 -> 10:20
| Source:
B92 |
BELGRADE --
Radicals top elections with 81 seats, followed by DS (65), DSS-NS (47), G17 Plus (19), SPS (16) and LDP (15).
Several parties representing ethnic minorities have also passed the threshold. Namely, the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians has won 3 seats, the Party of Democratic Action has 2 seats, while the two champions of the ethnic Romany community in Serbia, the Romany Association of Serbia and the Romany Party have won one seat a piece, according to CeSID’s vote count.
It remains to be seen after the final vote count whether the coalition of Preševo Valley Albanians will also have won enough votes to pass the threshold and get a seat in the new Parliament.
CeSID executive director Zoran Lučić said the Radicals and Socialists squeezed out the maximum number of votes out of their electorate. “The numbers tells us that nothing has changed in Serbia since 2003. If we look at the sum of SRS and SPS votes, they have always added up to 1.4 million. Our surveys during the past few months had suggested that support among the electorate for these two parties could falter, but this did not happen”, he added.
“The former members of the DOS coalition had won 2.4 million votes in the 2003 elections, just as they did this time. This means that nothing has changed during the past six years, which is somewhat disappointing”, Lučić concluded.
RIK produces similar results
The Republic Electoral Commission announced late last night that the Serbian Radical Party was backed by the largest share of the electorate – 28.32%.
The Democratic Party came in second with 22.67% and the coalition lead by the Democratic Party of Serbia was third with 16.38%.
G17 Plus also passed the threshold for entering the Parliament with 6.79% of the vote, the Socialist Party got 5.64% and the LDP-GSS-SDU-LSV coalition has 5.33%
The results of parties and coalition representing ethnic minorities: Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians - 1.57%; List for Sandžak – dr Sulejman Ugljanin coalition – 0.91%, Romany Union of Serbia – dr Rajko Đurić – 0.42%, coalition of the Preševo Valley Albanians – 0.41%, Hungarian Unity – Andraš Agošton – dr Pal Šandor coalition – 0.41% and Romany Party – Šajn Srđan – 0.39%
Albanians still not sure of seat in Parliament
It is still uncertain whether the coalition of Preševo Valley Albanians will have a seat in the new Serbian Parliament.
Leader of one of the two parties in the coalition Skender Destani said they would have one deputy in the new Serbian Parliament. For the time being, however, neither RIK nor CeSID have confirmed his prediction with numbers.
“This is a great political victory for the Albanians, who want everyone to enter Europe together, over forces that encouraged the voters to boycott the elections”, Destani said.
Member of the coalitions electoral team Nehat Hiseni confirmed Destani’s predictions, saying that based on data that has already been processed, the coalition has won 15,768 votes, which is more than the threshold of 14,500 votes needed for a seat in Parliament.
Two ethnic-Albanian parties formed the coalition and called people to vote, while the other two parties representing Albanians in South Serbia left the coalition and did not take part in the elections.
Some irregularities detected
CeSID reported that around 10 bigger violations of electoral rules were detected that, nevertheless, cannot affect the outcome on a large scale.
CeSID said that the biggest violation of electoral rules in Leskovac was committed by the Republic Election Commission (RIK). FoNet quoted the CeSID office in Leskovac as saying that, according to legal provisions, a person whose name is on the official list of candidates for a seat in the Serbian Parliament cannot attend the meetings of the Municipal Election Commission.
“Ljiljana Mladenović is the co-ordinator of the Election Commission in Leskovac appointed by RIK, but she has also been nominated on the electoral list of the Socialist Party of Serbia as a candidate for deputy in Serbian Parliament”, CeSID co-ordinator Milorad Mladenović said.
Vice President of the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA) Naser Aziri told FoNet that there had been irregularities during the elections at the voting station in Miratovac.
Aziri, whose party boycotted the elections, claims that members of the election boards in Miratovac cast voting ballots into the ballot box, circling names of people who never appeared at the elections.
DPA leader and President of Preševo Municipality Ragmi Mustafa said the elections in Preševo and Bujanovac violated the rules.
“The voting was similar to the era of Communism and the reign of former Serbian president Slobodan Milošević”, Mustafa said, adding that the DPA had filed a complaint to the Republic Election Commission.
Middle player position
Dušan Pavlović of the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade told B92 he was not surprised with the election results.
The only surprise result, according to Pavlović, was the DSS share of the vote, since they were expected to win more seats than they did. Pavlović added, however, that despite this under-achievement, the coalition around DSS had an excellent position in the negotiations over the new government.
“There is this one thing that tells us this has not so much to do with the number of votes won, but rather with Koštunica’s persistent refusals to reveal who he was going to form the next government with. This gives him the position of a middle player and an edge over DS on one side and SRS on the other”, Pavlović said.
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