"I will not run for president in April. Decision on coalition by February 1"

Photo: Tanjug/Milos Milivojevic

President of the Assembly of Serbia and the leader of the SPS Ivica Dacic said today that he does not want to run for president of Serbia in the elections on April 3, because that would be interpreted as being on the side of those who want to oust Aleksandar Vucic.

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"I will not run for president not because I'm afraid of the outcome, but because I think it would help those who are against Vucic winning in the first round, but want him to go to the second round. I think it's fair, we have been cooperating for 10 years and I don't want to participate in that," Dacic told TV Pink.

He added that the decision on whether the SPS will run in the elections independently or in a coalition with Vucic's SNS will be made by February 1, based on public opinion polls that will show what the voters want.

"Whether there will be one or two lists depends on how our voters view it, whether they would vote more if we had a single list or go separately," said the SPS president.

He stressed that the SPS will support Vucic as a joint presidential candidate, but that otherwise that party will have its own candidate.

He said that it has been agreed that the SPS and the JS would continue the coalition with the SNS even after the elections, regardless of how those parties would go to the polls.

Commenting on allegations coming from the opposition that part of the votes in the referendum was falsified, Dacic said they were "looking for an alibi" ahead of the upcoming elections.

He added that today's meeting of the Control Body of the Inter-Party Dialogue will discuss election laws proposed by the Government of Serbia to the Assembly, which have been harmonized with international institutions such as the OSCE and ODIR.

He said that the laws, among other things, refer to the control of the election process, and added that a government working group for the control of the voter roll has been formed, while there is a mechanism for everyone to ask if someone else voted instead of them.

He added that elections will be monitored by international observers, and that reports from the polling stations will be in electronic form and will be published.

"Radulovic demanded that ad hoc control be carried out at some polling stations when it comes to ballot counting. That is not a problem, Vucic met everyone's needs, he was much more tolerant than his party associates precisely out of the desire not to give anyone an alibi to say that there was any election rigging," said Dacic.

(Telegraf.rs)