Vučević: Electoral threshold in Serbia remains three percent

(Patria) - Leader of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and Minister of Defense of Serbia Miloš Vučević stated today that he had appealed for an increase in the electoral threshold, but added that there was no political will to do so.

In an interview with TV Prva, Vučević said that the threshold would remain at three percent in the upcoming elections.

- I understood the President of the State Aleksandar Vučić that it is not legitimate to do this on the eve of the elections, but I think it is unfair that we lowered the threshold to three percent. But we are going to the elections under these conditions - Vučević said.

He stated that it suits someone from outside to have a much more fragmented political scene in Serbia because, Vučević believes, it is easier to manage when there is no political stability.

Vučić said in mid-October that early parliamentary elections in Serbia would be held on December 17. On the same day, elections for the provincial parliament of Vojvodina, as well as elections in Belgrade, should be held.

Vučić, who by the Constitution, as President of the Republic, calls parliamentary elections, has not yet done so officially. The deadline for this is November 2.

Snežana Paunović, head of the parliamentary group of the Socialist Party of Serbia, which is part of the ruling coalition with the SNS, stated on October 18 that the SPS believes that lowering the threshold to three percent was a mistake.

On that occasion, she added that "it is too late to change the election law if the elections are to be held on December 17."

The threshold for entering parliament was reduced from five to three percent in February 2020. It was precisely the SNS that insisted on lowering the electoral threshold, two months before the parliamentary elections held on April 26, 2020.

The reason for that decision was the decision of several opposition parties to boycott the elections due to, as they explained, poor election conditions.

The elections were then boycotted, among others, by the Alliance for Serbia, a broad coalition consisting of ten parties and movements from the left and right political spectrum.

The government at the time presented the lowering of the electoral threshold as a step towards its political opponents, stating that this decision harms them the most.

For the reduction of the threshold within the amendments to the Law on the Election of National Deputies, 156 of the 160 deputies present voted in the Assembly at the time, writes RSE.