Belgrade Assembly Lacks Quorum to Dismiss Mayor Sapic
Only 47 of 110 councilors registered, so the opposition motion to dismiss the mayor waits until November 23. Each side blames the other, and the head counts differ.
An extraordinary session of the Belgrade City Assembly, with a single item on the agenda, the opposition motion to dismiss Mayor Aleksandar Sapic, was not held on October 13 because there was no quorum. Assembly Speaker Nikola Nikodijevic announced that 47 of the 110 councilors had registered, fewer than half. He rescheduled the session for November 23 at 10 a.m., almost a month after the elections set for October 25.
Right after the session, the ruling side and the opposition accused each other of causing the missing quorum and gave different figures for who was in the hall.
How did the Sapic dismissal session come about?
The Kreni-promeni movement filed the request for an extraordinary session on October 7. It was signed by 41 councilors: 21 from the movement itself, plus councilors from the Green-Left Front, the Freedom and Justice Party’s rival Movement of Free Citizens, the Democratic Party, the People’s Movement of Serbia, the New Face of Serbia, the We movement and Ecological Uprising. A day earlier, on October 6, the Assembly had rejected a Kreni-promeni proposal to add a conclusion on Sapic’s responsibility to the agenda of a regular session.
The trigger was the September 28 incident involving Tatjana Micic, a councilor from that movement. She said Sapic physically attacked her and hit her on the nose. Sapic denied it and said he only pushed her away from him when her husband moved toward him. Kreni-promeni said Micic was diagnosed with a fractured left nasal bone and part of the upper jaw. As we reported earlier, Sapic was questioned as a suspect in a case of grievous bodily harm.
Who is to blame for the missing quorum?
The head of the SNS councilor group in the City Assembly, Aleksandar Mirkovic, told a press conference that the opposition failed to bring its own councilors. By his account, 10 councilors of the ruling majority and 36 of the 46 opposition councilors were present, 46 in total, not the 47 cited by Nikodijevic, RTS and N1.
“So, 10 fewer than the total, and five fewer than the number of people who signed,” Mirkovic said, working from his own figures: 36 opposition councilors present, against the 46 the opposition has and the 41 signatories of the request. He called the session a “political farce by politically incompetent people” and added that the ruling majority had been ready to “add” the 10 councilors the opposition needed, but could not bring their councilors for them.
The opposition says the opposite. Borislav Antonijevic, a councilor from the We, the Power of the People movement, said 38 of the 41 signatories came. He explained the absence of councilor Rada Rakocevic by a business trip: “Rada Rakocevic did not come because she was on a business trip to Slovenia.” He added:
They know very well that we all work, that we have obligations, and I have no doubt they calculated how many people would show up.
Kreni-promeni president Savo Manojlovic said all 21 councilors of his movement were in the hall. Democratic Party councilors, he said, signed in solidarity but do not take part in the Assembly’s work, and one councilor is on a business trip. “The ruling majority always provides the majority and the quorum,” he stressed.
Before the session began, Manojlovic said:
Whether the Assembly majority will vote to remove Aleksandar Sapic depends on the political courage of Aleksandar Vucic, and it is not up to us.
He commented on the failed session with the words: “This shows that Aleksandar Vucic owes Aleksandar Sapic something and is afraid of something.”
What do the other opposition councilors say about the dismissal?
The head of the People’s Movement of Serbia councilors, Milos Pavlovic, said, according to an NPS statement, that the absence of SNS and SPS councilors amounts to dodging responsibility for the state of the city. He called signing the dismissal motion just one step, because in his view neither a dismissal nor a resignation solves Belgrade’s problems. He is calling for early city elections.
Stefan Simic of the Movement of Free Citizens believes Sapic’s fate will be settled before November 23. “Sapic is mayor today only because an election campaign is under way,” Simic said, claiming that the SNS does not know how to explain a dismissal to its voters and expecting October 25 to be a “referendum” on everything that is happening.
What else is in dispute: the pistols and the detention
The debate has meanwhile widened to the question of firearms. Manojlovic claims Sapic had two pistols at the time of the incident. The Third Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office said that is not true, and that two weapons were seized from the mayor that evening after he handed them over voluntarily at his home address. Mirkovic called the Kreni-promeni claim a “brutal lie” and added that Sapic stayed at the police station until six in the morning and that his alcohol and psychoactive substance tests came back negative.
Manojlovic stands by his claims. He announced that the movement would publish documents on its social media accounts about a Glock model 27 and a Crvena Zastava model M99 pistol, without saying what they contain.
Until November 23, it remains open whether the majority will provide a quorum. Antonijevic voiced hope that ruling majority councilors will “show a measure of responsibility” that day.
