Serbia’s opposition People’s Party decides to boycott spring elections

In a statement following the meeting, People’s Party said that the regime and opposition “dialogue so far, especially the last one (about the media) held on Monday, showed there is no will within the regime whatsoever to normalise the political life in Serbia, meet demands by #1 in 5 million protests’ organisers and enable fair elections.”

Centre-right People’s Party is a part of the opposition group Alliance for Serbia (SzS) together with eight other parties and organisations and is the first to declare the boycott officially. SzS said the decision would be brought in the second half of September and gave the authorities the September 15 deadline to cede to #1 in 5 million civil protests’ and their demands.

The 1 in 5 million organisation's press release earlier on Tuesday called on the opposition to declare a boycott of future elections as soon as possible.

The other SzS members are expected to bring the same decision soon. The New Party (Nova stranka) said it would decide once the elections were called.

Precise information about the boycott is expected on Friday after the meeting of all opposition forces which signed a joint request for free and fair elections.

On Monday, the round table discussion about media deepened the gap between the regime and opposition and SzS said it would not take part in the next two meetings due to be held. One of the round table discussions organisers, Milan Antonijevic, the head of the Open Society Foundation, said earlier on Tuesday he was not sure there would be any new talks.