Coalition partners cagey on election date

BELGRADE, Thursday - Local elections are to be held in Serbia as due this year, Socialist Party spokesman Ivica Dacic told media today. Dacic declined to give a date for the elections. Radical Party leader, Deputy Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Seselj, also told media today that government coalition partners had not yet agreed on a date for the elections. Belgrade media reported widely earlier this week that the Socialist Party has put its branch officials on alert for local government elections in February.

The Serbian Renewal Movement said today that it would propose that all opposition parties boycott local government elections if they are not held simultaneously with republic and federal polls. A senior Renewal Movement official, Aleksandar Cotric, told media in Loznica today that the party would also press for a boycott if elections were called under the present local government legislation.

Representatives of the largest opposition parties in the southern Serbian city of Nis began talks today on elections. Nis Mayor Zoran Zivkovic told the meeting that parties of the democratic opposition needed to begin discussing how they would react to any moves by the regime.

The president of the opposition Vojvodina Coalition, Dragan Veselinov, said today that the coalition would begin its election campaign with a rally in Pancevo on February 14. Veselinov said that the coalition would stand by its agreement with other parties in the united opposition and would not make a unilateral decision on whether to stand for elections.

Source: B92

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