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Comments
Huh, another ad for the crazy fat guy, and this one's even creepier.
"Vote for me and I'll...stalk young men?"
This guy's great.
I think I made up my mind. I'm going to vote for SPS+PUPS+JS. Sure, they've got a shitton of flaws, but my heart still beats on the left.
Only in Serbia.
i wonder where the rest of the tax money for that project went
Okay, so I voted today.
We had four ballots - for the municipal council (there I voted for the Democratic Party of Serbia), city council (Turnover), parliament (SPS+PUPS+JS) and presidential (Ivica Dačić from the Socialist Party of Serbia).
There weren't many people on my ballot location, and most of them are old. The voter apathy among the young is frightening.
Did any of them have pedobear avatars?
And yeah, I think one issue facing a lot of nations these days is that no young person really wants to be a politician. Some of them will want power, which might lead them into a job in politics, but ultimately all the people who want to make a difference for the better see politics as a dead end.
QFT. Nowadays it is very hard to find a young person that isn't jaded by the total shit modern multiparty democracy turned out to be. There are idealists that support a particular ideology and wish the best for their nation, but they usually find the political scene too disappointing to get into. What we have left are youth party activists, whom I simply adore to hate.
Well, only 53.6% of the total population has voted, which isn't much. We should have the first preliminary results in about an hour.
That's fairly low voter turnout, yes, considering the last American presidential election had around 68%.
The ruling coalition led by the Democratic Party (think Serbian PASOK) has a slight lead, according to roughly 20% of the votes. At first, it surprised me, considering their terrible performance and general unpopularity, but then I remembered a conversation I overheard in the bus about a week ago.
A woman and a man were discussing elections, and the woman (who appeared to be a bureaucrat) was talking about how her boss (high positions in public institutions are still determined according to the party line) said that if the Democrats lose, he will be fired and many employees will go down with him, so that she will have to vote for them even though she pretty much despises them. A huge number of people is employed in the public sector, so they must be following the same line of thought.
That is depressing.
It's nice to see that Serbia is beginning to follow in the footsteps of American democracy.
By "Serbian PASOK", do you mean moderate left-center?
That is correct, but what I meant to imply is closer to "utterly corrupt and inefficient".
Now the number of counted votes is about half, and the center-right Progressives gained a significant upper hand.
Hey Milos, this quote from the other thread -
- got me thinking. Around here, control of most of modern politics tends to be attributed to NWO/secret service/Russian secret service/mafia/Russian mafia. Or preferably a mix of any or all of them, of varying proportions and homogeneity. Corporate interests pretty much don't exist on their own, merely as intermediaries of the others (though given NWO's various images, NWO's case is probably closest to standard "for money!" objective). So what I'm curious is, how does it work in Serbia. If I was to make a guess, I'd wager for NWO.
Over here, it's mafia/corporate tycoons/EU/US. The last two tend to be given the NWO role, so yeah.
Also, the preliminary results are out, but I'm just going to wait for the official ones before I post them.
Okay, after 97.5% of the votes counted, I think that it is safe to tell the results. I even figured out that there were a couple of parties on the elections that I didn't even know candidated themselves in the first place, but oh well. Some of the more flamboyant ones include the Communist Party, led by Tito's son.
Presidential
In the first round of elections, people choose two candidates to go to the second round. In the second round, people finally choose the president. This was the first round, and the second will be on the 18th of May.
The two candidates that will pass to the second round are Boris Tadić of the Democratic Party (current president), with 25.3% votes, and Tomislav Nikolić from the Serbian Progressive Party, with 25%. Analysts think Tadić has more chance, but it will still be very tough. Both of 'em are assholes, so I can't decide for whom will I vote. Probably Nikolić, since Tadić used a legal loophole to candidate himself for his third term and I can't stand to watch that slimy autocrat anymore.
Parliamentary Elections
There are a total of 250 seats in the National Assembly. The seats are proportionally distributed among all the parties passing a 5% vote treshold (or 0.4%, if the party represents national minorities). The parties under that treshold don't enter the parliament, and it usually signals the death of their political carreer. Once the seats are distributed, the parties try to form a coalition government that a majority of the representatives will agree on.
So, the results are:
Serbian Progressive Party (center-right, populist conservativism, moderate nationalism) - 24%, 73 representatives
Democratic Party (center-left, social democracy) - 22%, 67 representatives
Socialist Party of Serbia (democratic socialism, left-wing nationalism) - 14.5%, 44 representatives
Democratic Party of Serbia (conservativism, conservative liberalism, nationalism, isolationism) - 7%, 21 representative
Liberal Democratic Party (liberalism, progressivism, amerophilia) - 6.5%, 20 representatives
United Regions of Serbia (right liberalism, regionalism) - 5.5%, 16 representatives
Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (right liberalism, minority rights) - 1.77%, 5 representatives
Sandžak Party of Democratic Action (conservative liberal, minority rights) - 0.72%, 2 representatives
All Together (a coalition of small minority parties) - 0.65%, 1 representative
None of the Above Options (grassroots, direct democracy; officially registered as a minority party representing Vlachs in order to get into the parliament) - 0.6%, 1 representative
The rest failed to enter the parliament. The most surprising one of those is the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, which garnered only 4.36% votes even though it was the strongest political party before their moderate, pro-EU wing broke away and formed the Progressive Party. Overall, this has to be the most left-wing parliament Serbia has seen in the last 12 years, which is a good thing. The most right-wing is the Democratic Party of Serbia, which is quite sane; I hold something of a soft spot for them since their leaders are the most educated and the most principled; oh, and they'd still be left-wing by American standards. :P
The coalition government will be led by one of the two leading parties, but it will be impossible to form without the support of the Socialists, so they're making huge demands and are the real winners of these elections. The socialists are more inclined to form a coalition with the Democrats, since they have been partners in the current government, but the Democrats don't seem to keen on handing over the position of Prime Minister to Ivica Dačić, the leader of the socialists, and the Progressives seem a lot more willing to do it. The Liberal Democratic Party will probably try to tie itself with the Democrats, but the other option is quite possible. The United Regions can go either way. The Democratic Party of Serbia probably won't attempt to form a government, but if it does it will be with the Progressives, but that will exclude the possibility of the Progressives' coalition with the liberals. All in all, the Democrats have more chance of winning and forming a government similar to the current one.
Belgrade City Council
The Democrats, led by the current mayor Dragan Đilas have won by a huge margin (Belgrade is the strongest outpost of the Democrats in Serbia, probably because it is one of the only parts of Serbia that they truly care about). It goes like this:
Democratic Party - 35.2%, 50 councilmen
Serbian Progressive Party - 25.7%, 37 councilmen
Socialist Party of Serbia - 9.15%, 13 councilmen
Democratic Party of Serbia - 7.45%, 10 councilmen
The rest haven't passed the census.
Čukarica Municipal Council
My municipality.
Democratic Party - 33.06%, 17 councilmen
Serbian Progressive Party - 27.03%, 14 councilmen
Democratic Party of Serbia - 11.43%, 6 councilmen
Socialist Party of Serbia - 10.24%, 5 councilmen
Liberal Democratic Party - 6.22%, 3 councilmen
Sounds... sane. I mean, no crazy shit like 10% neo-Nazis or something. I guess that's good.
Btw is it true that the Nationalists believe the election was stolen?
There's always someone who believes that, heh heh.
Yeah, it's true that they claim that. Also, what Gacek said - it's extremely unlikely that what they claim is true but, granted, the Democrats did lead an extremely dirty and ruthless electoral campaign.
And I wouldn't use the term "Nationalists" to describe the Progressive Party since, even though having some moderate nationalist leanings, it's far from their defining political point, nor are they some sort of BNP-style radical right. The term gets thrown around way too often when it comes to Serbian politics, mostly by the Democrats in order to pit the West against their opponnents.
The most obnoxious example of that is when they were refered to simply as "former Milosevic allies" in many Western reports on the elections, while failing to mention that the Socialist Party of Serbia, which is allied with the Democrats, is Milosevic's party, nor that the Serbian Radical Party (a genuinely nationalist party that the Progressives broke away from), were very reluctant Milosevic's coalition partners for only a year, nor that there was a period between 1995 and 1997 when Milosevic's guys were actually the least nationalistic of the whole bunch and that the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (the predecessor of the Democratic Party) was gleefully spewing violent, nationalist rhetoric.
Really, check out their platform and tell me if you see anything nationalistic.
Doesn't sound very nationalistic, no?
I am not a big fan of the Progressives, but I hate manipulation of truth even more, and the unfairness that the Democrats are approaching this whole thing makes me sick. Tadić, the Democratic Party president AND the preisdent of Serbia (even though dual functions are forbidden by law) has repeatedly shown utter disregard for the Consitution, rule of law and his responsibility to the people, which has culminated by using a loophole to candidate himself for his third term. Tadić is a dictator, pure and simple, and his party keeps tabs on all business of the state. A pro-Western dictator, but a dictator nevertheless.
NEWS!
The counting of the votes for the second round of the presidential elections is underway. Despite all expectations, Tomislav Nikolić from the Serbian Progressive Party has a definite lead at more than a half of the votes counted, and he is already proclaimed the unofficial victor of the elections. Tadić has made a fool of himself after learning that he won't get to make 15 consecutive years in the presidential chair, literally sobbing in front of cameras and frantically pushing his sick 83-year old father in a wheelchair to the ballot location.
I don't like Nikolić but I am very happy to see this pathetic smearhead finally lose his presidency.
In other news, the government still isn't formed. The Democrats have renewed their partnership with the Socialists, but they need the support of either the Liberals or the United Regions to form a government. They are still considered the most likely to form a government, even though both the Liberals and the United Regions don't seem too keen on doing it.
The Progressives most definitely won't be able to form a government, even though the Liberals seem to be warming up to them. It would only be possible if the Socialists decide to turn their back on the Democrats, which is very unlikely.
A coalition between the two biggest parties is the least possible outcome. Even if it happens, it would be completely disastrous, in my opinion.
Nikolić's election for president has completely turned over the plan for the forming of the government. The Socialists have defected to the Progressives and offered them a coalition, but Nikolić refused. Apparently, he wants to let the Democrats form a government, for pretty unclear reasons, and has candidated Tadić for Prime Minister, which he refused.
There are three possible scenarios now:
1) Tadić decides to accept Nikolić's proposal. The Democrats and Socialists form a government.
2) Tadić continues to refuse the proposition. The Progressives and Socialists form a government.
3) The Progressives and Democrats form a government (not very likely, but still possible). The Socialists become the leading opposition party, which would probably turn them into the strongest political bloc at the time of the next elections.
Nikolić himself has taken many unexpectable decisions in order to was off his previous reputation and try to prove the people comparing him to Hitler wrong, such as promising to head the 2012 Belgrade Pride Parade!
I guess that "Serbian Progressive Party" is not simply a moniker anymore. :unsmith: