People's Choice Coalition Begins Signature Drive in Serbia
NPS, New Face of Serbia and Ecological Uprising signed a coalition deal for the People's Choice list, and teams began collecting signatures at more than 100 locations.
The People’s Movement of Serbia (NPS), New Face of Serbia (NLS) and Ecological Uprising signed a coalition agreement on Thursday, September 10, for a joint election list called People’s Choice. The document was signed by NPS president Miroslav Aleksic, NLS president Milos Parandilovic and Ecological Uprising president Aleksandar Jovanovic Cuta, the People’s Movement of Serbia announced.
The three parties formed a coalition under the name People’s Serbia. Starting Friday, September 11, a day after the signing, their teams hit the ground: collecting voter signatures begins at more than 100 points across Serbia, with the goal of gathering the legal minimum of 10,000 certified signatures before the list is submitted. Parliamentary elections have been called for October 25.
Aleksic, Parandilovic and Cuta are not new allies in the National Assembly. The three parties already share a joint parliamentary group there, registered under the name People’s Movement of Serbia, Ecological Uprising, New Face of Serbia, so the election coalition deal mainly formalized cooperation that has existed at the parliamentary level for some time. What is new, compared with what was already known about signature collection getting underway and the opposition splitting into several columns, is that the three signatories, the coalition’s name and the list’s name have now been fixed.
The People’s Serbia coalition says it wants to be a third option at the ballot box, outside the divide between the government and the existing opposition:
Our goal is to be the third force in the upcoming elections, to bring together everyone who wants change, and to bring down the regime together. We will stand before the people with our names and our actions and ask for their support, aware of the responsibility we carry. Because the people are the only judge.
The message came in a joint statement issued after the agreement was signed. Representatives of the three parties said that next week they will focus on fieldwork, talking to citizens at signature-collection points and presenting their joint program and candidates.
People’s Serbia’s ambition to become a third force in the October 25 elections means the coalition will compete for voters who usually lean toward the ruling list as well as those who have voted for the existing opposition until now. That further complicates the picture on the opposition side. The pro-European wing of the political scene is running in at least two separate columns in this election: one is European Serbia, a coalition of the Party of Freedom and Justice, Serbia Centre and Solidarity, and the other is People’s Choice, built around NPS, NLS and Ecological Uprising.
Serbian news outlets had already reported that signature collection for the parliamentary elections was underway (Election on October 25: Signature Collection Begins, 10,000 Needed). The agreement signed by NPS, NLS and Ecological Uprising now spells out exactly which opposition actors stand behind the People’s Choice list and under what terms that coalition is heading into the field, while the remaining columns, European Serbia included, are still expected to announce their own signature-collection schedules.
Before October 25, election day, the People’s Serbia coalition has a little over six weeks to gather the required signatures, introduce its candidates and build recognition for the People’s Choice list among voters who see neither the government nor the existing opposition as their option. Whether the 10,000 signatures will be collected before the deadline, and what program Aleksic, Parandilovic and Cuta will bring before voters, will become clear over the coming weeks of the campaign, right up to October 25.
