Serbia's Assembly Fills With EU Russian, Controversial

Following the April 3rd elections, three right-wing opposition coalitions and parties that are skeptical or openly oppose membership in the European Union will enter Serbia's new composition.

Coalition NADA (Spression), which consists of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), with part of the Serbian Kingdom Renewment Movement, won 15 mandates, followed by extreme rightist moves Dveri and Zavetnici (Swearing) with 10 mandates.

Together, they will have 35 out of 250 seats in Serbia's Parliament.

Facing them are the pro-European opposition coalition “united for Serbia's” victory with 37 mandates, as well as the leftist green coalition “Moramo” (We need) 13 seats of MPs.

Even though the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) won the largest number of seats in Serbia's Parliament (120), its leader and Serbian President Aleksandar Vuciq, said after announcing the results, on April 3rd, that Serbia had “moved dramatically to the right”.

In MPs' seats, the right-oriented Democratic Party of Serbia -- at the helm of which was once Vojislav Kostunica, who in 2000 -- defeated Slobodan Milosevic in the presidential elections of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In previous elections in 2020, this party failed to pass the election threshold.

Their leader, Milos Jovanovic, considers that the threat to Serbia's national interests comes from the West and NATO, when it comes to Kosovo, Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the position of the Serb people in Montenegro.

He says Russia sided with Serbia with the UN Security Council.

The coalition over the extreme right movement Dveri is also being restored to parliament. Led by Bosko Obradovic, the move first entered the republican parliament in 2016, and in 2020 a part of the opposition joined in boycotting the elections.

Dveri engages against Serbia's entry into the European Union and NATO, “the intervention of illegal immigrants” on Serbia's territory and against Kosovo's independence. They see Russia as “organising Kosovo's preservation under Serbia”.

For the first time in parliamentary banks, MPs from the far-right party, Zavetnici, whose name has been chosen, as they say on their website, based on the “historical experience, in which the central point takes the oath of Kosovo”. /Full text in: REL/