Austrian MP Petra Bajer Backs European Serbia Coalition

The Party of Freedom and Justice (SSP) announced today that the “European Serbia, Marinika Tepic, Zdravko Ponos” coalition has won the backing of Petra Bajer, an MP and foreign policy spokesperson for Austria’s Social Democratic Party (SPÖ). The endorsement came a day after the SSP began rolling out its campaign program across Serbia, and a day before one of the party’s officials publicly explained why the coalition is not joining forces with the Students’ List.

According to the SSP statement, Bajer said Europe today needs people who fight courageously for European values. The party notes that she is one of the SPÖ’s key parliamentary leaders, and that the SPÖ is a sister party of the SSP within the Party of European Socialists.

The unequivocal support of one of Europe’s most influential social democratic parties is especially important at a time when European values are being brutally trampled by a regime that is turning us into a hole in Europe’s carpet.

the SSP said in its statement.

The European Serbia coalition, which alongside Dragan Djilas’s SSP also brings together Zdravko Ponos’s Serbia Center and Goran Jesic’s Civic Movement Solidarity, submitted 10,200 signatures of support to the Republic Election Commission (RIK) on the evening of September 19, a submission Srpske Novine reported on at the time. RIK subsequently certified the list, assigned it ballot position ten for the October 25 election, and confirmed it includes 246 of a possible 250 candidates. The list was filled out after the earlier withdrawal of the SSP’s Borko Stefanovic, Jelena Milosevic and Vladimir Vrsajkov, along with Goran Petrovic, Pedja Mitrovic and Mila Popovic, who chose instead to back the Students’ List.

Speaking to N1 about why the coalition, despite overlapping programs, did not join the Students’ List, Vladimir Obradovic, a member of the SSP Presidency, said the two lists’ platforms align on key points such as fighting corruption, media freedom and depoliticizing state institutions, but that running independently increases European Serbia’s chances of defeating Aleksandar Vucic in the election.

By withdrawing we would shrink the anti-regime front, we would reduce the number of voters who turn out, we would lower turnout. With lower turnout, Vucic’s satellite parties, and he himself, end up percentage-wise bigger.

Obradovic said.

He added that the coalition has for now been certified as the tenth list on the ballot, which in his view shows that Vucic is deliberately diluting the electoral field to pick up votes that would not otherwise go to him.

The coalition’s program rollout began on September 20 with a statement from Marinika Tepic, one of the list’s leaders, who announced that European Serbia’s priorities are the economy, justice and Serbia’s European path.

Restoring the rule of law and a merciless reckoning with corruption and crime is our priority, and our first move is stopping the theft from the Expo project.

Tepic said in the SSP statement, without naming specific amounts or contracts tied to the project.

Tepic also said the coalition’s campaign would not be built on empty promises.

Our campaign will not be an empty promise and a celebrity photo op, but a clear plan for dismantling the corrupt system.

she said, adding that urgently unblocking Serbia’s European integration is a priority above all others.

The priority of all priorities is urgently unblocking European integration.

Tepic concluded.

As of publication, government officials had not commented on the Austrian MP’s endorsement of the coalition. The campaign for the October 25 parliamentary election, the eleventh snap vote since Serbia introduced a multiparty system, has opened without major friction between the two largest lists, the ruling Serbian Progressive Party and the Students’ List, while smaller coalitions such as European Serbia are still working to make their program and foreign backing visible to voters.