Dacic: Yesterday's session of the National Assembly had to be held

Photo: Nikola Tomic

Yesterday's special session of the Serbian National Assembly, at which Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic took the oath of office, is envisaged by the Serbian Constitution and it would have been a violation of the Constitution had it not been convened, because the previous (presidential) term lasted until May 31 and the session had to be held, said Assembly President Ivica Dacic.

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He appeared on TV Prva and explained that the current convocation of the Assembly is the only one we have, that it cannot pass laws, but can perform activities other than lawmaking.

Regarding the criticism coming from the opposition because the president took the oath before the deputies of the previous convocation, Dacic said that the fact that we do not have a new parliament yet is the result of the annuling of election results in some polling stations and demands to repeat voting there.

"They say the state is incompetent and there is no new Assembly, but people should understand that this delay is caused by various appeals, lawsuits and court decisions, while the possibility for that has been created precisely through the dialogue between the government and the opposition. These were the requests of EU institutions and parliamentarians, to extend certain deadlines for submitting complaints and appeals, so now there are 72 hours for someone to consider whether to file a complaint, lawsuit or objection," said Dacic.

He added that there is now a specific situation in Veliki Trnovac, where elections have been repeated three times already.

Some Albanians there are again asking for the latest voting results to be annulled, and the way things are going this could last forever - while it is in our interest for it to end as soon as possible, said Dacic.

Asked about the deadlines for constituting the new Assembly and forming the Government of Serbia, he said that when the voting in Veliki Trnovac is over, the Republic Election Commission must announce the final results, which again can be appealed, and when that is over there will be a deadline of 30 days to hold the first session of parliament, and then 90 days to form a government.

(Telegraf.rs)