The will of the people should be respected and the new government should be constituted as soon as possible, Ivica Dacic, the leader of the Socialist Party of Serbia that finished third in the recent general elections, was quoted by the Serbian media as saying on Monday. He admitted that Tomislav Nikolic's victory at the presidential elections rendered the situation more complicated.
After the general elections on May 6, including the first round of presidential elections, Dacic's SPS and Boris Tadic's Democratic Party (DS) agreed to form a coalition to establish a new government.
According to the results of the May 6 parliamentary election, Nikolic's Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) won 73 seats, Tadic's DS 67 seats and the SPS-led coalition 44 seats. Before the presidential run-off on May 20 in which Nikolic defeated Tadic, political and media pundits assessed that the DS and the SPS would form a ruling coalition and a new government.
Asked by the media whether the existing coalition agreement would remain in place, Dacic said that developments following Nikolic's victory changed the political scene.
"That means that the prime minister-designate is named by the president and the question is whom he (Nikolic) will give the authority of premier-designate, so everything will be more complicated," Dacic said.
