Ruling SNS party's parliamentary group chief Jovanov: There are no conditions for early elections in Serbia

Photo: RINA

The head of the SNS parliamentary group in the Serbian National Assembly, Milenko Jovanov, said today that the intention of the protesters ("blockaders") to take power in the streets has failed, and that "the whistle has long since been blown" to mark the end of the color revolution attempt in Serbia.

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Jovanov also stressed that the protesters' violence shows that there are no conditions to fulfill their demand and hold early parliamentary elections.

Jovanov said that the "blockaders" cannot tolerate anyone who does not think like them and that by demolishing buses in Cacak and attacking people taking part in rallies against the blockades, they showed that there are no conditions for those elections.

"Their demand for early elections cannot be met because of them. How are we supposed to have conditions for elections when the SNS cannot set up a stand without them coming over to harass people? How can SNS activists do a door-to-door campaign when buses are demolished, when 200 people arrive to assault them at peaceful rallies in Sabac and Cacak? Under such conditions, we cannot hold elections," Jovanov told TV Pink.

He stressed that elections will be held when the time comes and when the country can hold them because Serbia has many tasks ahead, primarily related to EXPO in Belgrade.

"We offered elections back when the voting could have been organized without consequences, but they (protesters) said that they were not interested and that whoever accepted the offer was 'a traitor who works for Vucic'. Now we have embarked on some business that must be completed for the sake of the state," said Jovanov.

He recalled that President Aleksandar Vucic has repeatedly said that elections will be held before the legal deadline, which means that formally, the demand for early elections has been met.

Commenting on the reaction of EU Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos to President Vucic's statement about members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who were at the protests in Novi Sad, Jovanov said that the farther from Belgrade she gets, the statements Kos makes get harsher, while when she comes to Belgrade, she is "very soft."

Jovanov said that two MEPs - Vula Tsetsi and Rasmus Nordqvist - came to Serbia to lecture the country on what and how should be done, and added that they were in Serbia at the invitation of the Green-Left Front, whose deputies have been causing incidents in the Serbian National Assembly, including by using fire extinguishers to spray other deputies.

Jovanov also asked whether these MEPs participated in violent protests, whether they attacked the Serbian police, or threw heavy duty pyrotechnics - since they were there where these things were happening.

"And the fact that the president said that the law applies to them as well, aren't they teaching us from Brussels and the European Union exactly that the law must apply to everyone? I don't understand what they want, for the law to apply to everyone or not, for Serbia have the rule or law or to be a state where it's decided arbitrarily to whom the law applies and to whom it does not? If a member of our Assembly went to Germany and ran amok there, participated in some violent demonstrations, would anyone say, 'well that's a Serbian deputy' or would they get detained?," Jovanov asked.

(Telegraf.rs/Tanjug)