The forthcoming elections on the St George Day will be the general ones for the first time after 15 years. Besides parliamentary, provincial and local ones, scheduled earlier, Assembly Speaker Slavica Djukic Dejanovic has also called the presidential elections for May 6, after receiving the letter of resignation from Boris Tadic.
He said that the decision to shorten the turn in the office was made because “he is a responsible man”. “If we were to have another elections after these, there would be no time for the realization of reforms that await us”, explained Tadic.
Therefore, at the height of party political campaigns their direction has been changed to a degree, but the general impression is that the parties had expected such decision from Tadic. Besides him and Tomislav Nikolic from the Progressive Party, leader of the Socialist Party Ivica Dacic has also immediately announced his candidacy, saying that he wishes to show the two other candidates they are wrong to think only they have some authority in Serbia. “Serbia is not a loaf of bread that can be split in two parts”, concluded Dacic. However, at least five more parties have announced their own presidential candidates.
According to most political analysts, holding the presidential election along with the parliamentary ones could accelerate the forming of the Government after May 6, because the contours of the future ruling coalition can be seen in the support to any of the two candidates who make it to the second round of the presidential elections. It is also the prevailing opinion that this time the presidential election will help to have the bigger turnout, but will also personalize the program-based campaigns by giving them “face”.
The week behind us was also marked by the consensus on accepting the initiative of the “Blic” daily to dissolve the “partycracy” in employment and management of public companies, which was signed by presidents or high officials of all relevant parties in Serbia. This has been the first occasion of that kind in the recent political history, and probably will stay unique for some more time to come, as following is the period of fierce verbal duels. In the focus of attention are the economic topics, investments, infrastructure, agriculture… neither the EU nor Kosmet have been on the list of priorities, as was expected, and those two issues will practically only serve as the trap to be avoided or skipped. The following elections will be neither won nor lost on those. For that reason, the parties that build their campaigns around those problems will probably feel the consequences in the number of votes. Recovering from crisis, the daily and chronic one will be the decisive point in these elections.
Notwithstanding the surveys that clearly show only four out of ten citizens are susceptible to the influence of the campaigns in deciding how to vote in the elections.