Serbian president urges early elections soon after referendum

Serbian President Boris Tadic said on Saturday that the presidential and parliamentary elections should be held as soon as possible, following the referendum on the new Serbian constitution.

"March elections would be a bad solution," because elections held during the adoption of a final solution for Kosovo would be counterproductive, Tadic said in the town of Knjazevac after talks with local authorities, the official Tanjug news agency reported.

"Kosovo is an important issue for Serbia and whatever the international community does, we will find ourselves in an atmosphere of intense emotions with little rationality," said Tadic, adding that elections should be held in a normal atmosphere.

Tadic made the appeal as Serbian parties are divided on whether to hold simultaneous parliamentary and presidential elections. The ruling coalition and other parties favor parliamentary elections to take place right after the constitutional referendum, but there is no consensus for presidential elections.

According to local press reports, Tadic has received signals from the government of Vojislav Kostunica that the presidential elections are not likely to be held before February next year. Political analyst Djordje Vukadinovic said that the opposition to the possible presidential elections stems from a lack of good candidates from the ruling coalition.

On Oct. 28-29, Serbia will hold a referendum to decide the fate of the new Serbian constitution that confirms Kosovo as a part of Serbia. According to a recent survey conducted by the Center for Free Elections and Democracy, about four million citizens will participate in the referendum and that 95 percent of them will vote "yes" to ensure the success of the referendum.

Kosovo has been put under UN administration since 1999 when NATO intervened to stop Serbia's crackdown on separatist Kosovo Albanians. The UN-sponsored talks on Kosovo's future status was launched at the end of 2005, while the international Contact Group of six major powers has set the deadline of concluding status talks by the end of 2006.

"We face several heavy doors that we should open, and let us invest all our efforts with regard to the business linked to the new constitution," said Tadic, leader of the opposition Democratic Party, adding that those "doors" are the constitution, elections, pre-membership talks with the European Union, and cooperation with The Hague tribunal.

Source: Xinhua