REM Council Holds Third Vote for Chairman, Needs Six Votes
Serbia's media regulator, the Council of REM, is voting for a chairman for the third time, after its first two sessions in July failed to give any candidate the six votes needed for election.
A third session with no outcome guaranteed
The Council of Serbia’s Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM) opened its third constitutive session on September 1 at 11 a.m., at the regulator’s offices on Nikola Pasic Square in Belgrade. The session is chaired by the Council’s oldest member, Dubravka Valic Nedeljkovic, and is open to the public. The regulator’s invitation did not list an agenda, but electing a chairman remains the only unresolved item after two failed attempts in July.
All eight elected Council members are attending: Milos Garic, Stevica Smederevac, Milan Petkovic, Snezana Miljkovic, Dubravka Valic Nedeljkovic, Ira Prodanov Krajisnik, Mileva Malesic and Rodoljub Sabic. At least six votes are needed to elect a chairman.
The number of voting members returned to eight after four members, who had previously submitted resignations to the National Assembly, announced on July 11 that they would continue their work on the Council. That followed the Assembly’s determination that those resignations carried no legal effect.
Two failed attempts in July
The first constitutive session was held on July 20. In a secret ballot, candidates Milos Garic and Mileva Malesic each received four votes, and neither crossed the six-vote threshold.
The second session followed on July 30. Garic and Valic Nedeljkovic were nominated, and again neither won the required majority. Telegraf reports that seven of the eight members attended that session, as Ira Prodanov Krajisnik was absent for health reasons. After the second session, Valic Nedeljkovic said the result across two rounds of voting was 4-3 in Garic’s favor.
The Council’s ninth seat, reserved for a representative of national minorities, remains empty. The Assembly’s Committee on Culture and Information halted the nomination process for that seat on June 25, pending the election of new councils of national minorities.
The session is also attended by REM director Rajka Galin Certic, media representatives, and observers from the embassies of Ireland and Norway, the OSCE and the Delegation of the European Union to Serbia. If the Council elects a chairman today, the election of a deputy chairman is next on the agenda.
