BELGRADE (Serbia), March 4 (SeeNews) – Serbia's president Tomislav Nikolic called an early parliamentary election on April 24, he said in his official Twitter account on Friday.
The time has come for citizens to have their say whether they support the serious and difficult reforms, Nikolic said, as quoted by the government's press office.
The president urged citizens and media to ensure a fair and democratic race, voicing confidence that Serbia would stay on the reform path.
Serbia has been under pressure to rationalise public administration and privatise losing public companies, under a 1.2 billion euro ($1.3 billion) precautionary stand-by agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) signed in 2015.
In mid-January, outgoing prime minister Aleksandar Vucic suggested early elections in an attempt to unblock reforms and prepare Serbia for EU membership.
Serbia opened the first two out of 35 chapters in its negotiations to join the EU in December.
Early opinion polls in January showed that contrary to EU-oriented hopes, expressed by Vucic, radical end euro-sceptical political forces, like the far-right Radical Party of alleged war criminal Vojislav Seselj and the pro-Russian coalition DSS-Dveri, are set to enter next Serbian parliament. The two lists were nowhere near surpassing the 5% threshold in the 2014 election campaign.
Vucic's coalition government, elected on April 27, 2014, comprised the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), the left-wing Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and Socialdemogratic Party of Serbia (SDP Srbije).
These would be the third early elections in a row for Serbia in the past four years.
A scheduled local government vote will most probably be held also on April 24, news agency Tanjug reported, quoting Istvan Pastor - Assembly president of the province of Vojvodina.