Ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and its leading coalition partner Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) would run on separate tickets, while SPS would support SNS leader and the head of state Aleksandar Vucic as a presidential candidate, the Nova daily reported on Wednesday (26.01).
The daily said Vucic decided it based on opinion polls showing the parties would have better results if running separately in general and Belgrade elections. The move followed other opinion polls suggesting Serbia’s opposition stood the most realistic chance of winning in Belgrade. Last October, the SPS leader, and the Parliament Speaker Ivica Dacic said the coalition partners should run together in the 2022 elections at both levels. Aleksandar Sapic, the head of the New Belgrade municipality, who with his ‘Spas’ movement recently joined SNS and became one of its deputy leaders, will head the city’s candidates list on which, according to Nova, there won’t be current Belgrade officials.
Sapic later confirmed he would lead the Belgarde candidate list, adding Vucic suggested that. Serbia’s parliamentary, presidential, Belgrade, and some local votes are due on April 3.
In the 2020 elections, boycotted by main opposition parties, SNS won 60,65 and SPS 10.38 percent of the votes, running on one electoral list.