Serbia – Presidential election 2nd round

In Serbia, the second round of the presidential election was held on Sunday.

Here are the results of the presidential election based on nearly all votes counted and as reported in B92:

Tomislav Nikolić (Serbian Progressive Party, SNS) – 49.51%
Boris Tadić (Democratic Party, DS) – 47.35%

So, the incumbent president has been defeated. The big question now is what happens to the government?

In the legislative election just two weeks ago, the seats were distributed as follows:

SNS-led coalition – 73 seats
The DS-led coalition – 67 seats
Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS)-led coalition – 44 seats
Democratic Party of Serbia – 21 seats
Liberal Democratic Party – 19 seats
United Regions of Serbia – 16 seats
Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians – 5 seats
Others – 4 seats
Total – 250 seats

Prior to the second round of the presidential election, there was general agreement that the government would be a coalition of the DS and the SPS. To gain a majority, there was talk that representatives of the smaller parties would be included.

However, the SNS has now won the presidential election. Moreover, the SNS coalition will be the largest group in the new parliament. So, presumably, they will get the first chance to form the government. Again, the SPS is likely to get the chance to play kingmaker.

At this point, it is at least possible that the new president could begin his term with a period of cohabitation. However, Tadić has declared that he will not serve as PM.

It is worth bearing in mind that the Serbian president has very few constitutional powers. Using Siaroff’s measure of presidential power, I gave Serbia a score of just 2 in a chapter here.

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