Eurasia Press & News
BELGRADE — The New Democratic Party (NDS) has announced that it will not be part of a government to in the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) would also participate.
The NDS, led by Serbia’s former president and former leader of the Democrats (DS), Boris Tadić, noted on Sunday that, after the talks with the Serb Progressive Party (SNS), it sticks to the stance that it will not join a government that would include the SPS led by Outgoing Prime Minister Ivica Dačić.
“Although we have mostly agreed on what the central problems of our society are, we believe that, if the Socialists entered the government, it would not be possible to resolve the issues,” the release notes.
“Such a decision does not mean the conditioning of the SNS, but meeting our own condition that we will not give up on our principles and what believe it is in the interest of Serbian citizens just in order to enter the government,” the NDS said.
If the SPS were invited to join the new government, the NDS would be a pro-European, constructive and strong opposition, the release adds.
The NDS believes that it will be able to contribute much more to achieving the goals relating to Serbia’s further development from “the position of a good opposition than a bad government”.
“Today, after a historic national consensus was reached in 2008 by including the SPS in the government, that party has nothing to offer, but a detrimental, Machiavellian approach to politics. Today, no coalition government with the SPS in it cannot possibly be a good government,” the NDS said.
“No position to make demands”
Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) leader Ivica Dačić has said that Boris Tadić is in no position to make demands concerning the New Democratic Party’s (NDS) entry into Serbia’s next government.
Commenting on the statement that the NDS will not be part of any government that includes the SPS, “because that party has nothing to offer apart from a Machiavellian approach to politics,” Dačić stressed that it was the “pinnacle of political blindness.”
The SPS won almost three times as many votes as the NDS at the parliamentary election on March 16, that is 44, while the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) led by Aleksandar Vučić won by a landslide, taking 158 seats, Dačić pointed out.
Tadić lost the presidential election to SNS leader at the time Tomislav Nikolić two years ago, and the coalition centered d around the NDS won 18 seats in March.
“The people are the supreme political judge and Tadić’s slate barely made it over the election threshold, and they achieved that thanks to the League of Social-Democrats of Vojvodina headed by Nenad Čanak,” Dačić underscored.
“It was the people’s answer to the question whose policy was bad,” the outgoing prime minister noted. “I would like to point out that it was precisely after Tadić’s departure that Serbia achieved a historic success – changed its international image, started the accession talks with the EU and improved its friendship with Russia, China and other countries,” Dačić stated.
Tadić’s attitude towards the SPS is particularly hypocritical, since he had no problem with them while they were part of the same government for four years and when they supported him in the second round of the presidential election against Nikolić, he remarked.
“In other words, you are alright while you are with me, but you are bad when you are with someone else,” Dačić said, asking “what principles did the SPS violate in working with the SNS that Tadić did not in his desire to do the same.”
