Vucic: Boycott will fail, high turnout will discredit Serbia's opposition

 In an opinion article for EURACTIVE.com website, Vucic said that “genuine Serbian opposition voters could thus be denied their basic democratic right to political representation and could be de facto disenfranchised by a few unelected individuals who claim to represent them.”

He added that those who decided to boycott the elections had failed “to win the hearts and minds of voters.” At the same time, he wrote,  his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and the Government it led, “had succeeded and is ready to face the electorate in a free and fair election.”

The main opposition parties who said would boycott the elections claimed that the vote could not be free and fair and that was their reason for not taking part.

Vucic recalled the results of three meetings of the ruling coalition parties and European Union mediators, also boycotted by foremost opposition leaders and held under the Chatham House rule, to try to improve the election conditions in the country, saying  “key measures, such as the law on financing of electoral campaigning, the law on the functioning of the Anti-Corruption Agency, rules that govern political activities by elected officials and civil servants, rules governing access to media during the electoral campaign, rules governing the management of electoral rolls and voting procedures, as well as the rights of voters and domestic and foreign election observers to scrutinise and monitor the elections, have all been adopted and the necessary regulations passed.”

The EU representatives said they would monitor the implementation of the agreed.

Vucic also mentioned that the threshold was reduced from five to three percent, in order to, as he said, “ensure representation of a broader range of political parties and guaranteed seats to representatives of ethnic minorities.”

“Both those measures will reduce the number of seats that the SNS can potentially secure,” he wrote.

But, the EU and the opposition leaders said that such an essential part of the election process should not be changed few months ahead of the vote.

Besides, the Europeans said the issue was not even mentioned during the three meetings.

The opposition says Vucic wanted that to include as many as possible minor parties to secure a higher turnout and minimise the effect of the boycott.