Consultations: SNS Attends, Student List Unconfirmed

Representatives of the electoral lists will gather on Friday, November 13, at noon in the House of the National Assembly in Belgrade for consultations ahead of the constitutive session of the new parliament. The “Aleksandar Vucic - United Serbia” list has announced it will attend. The Student List, which holds a majority in the new parliament, had not confirmed in media reports as of November 12 that it will come, and has not named its candidate for Assembly speaker.

The date of the consultations was announced by the National Assembly. The constitutive session is scheduled for Tuesday, November 17, at 10 a.m. According to Mond, the oldest member of parliament, Stojan Radenovic (78), a retired mathematics professor who enters parliament on Aleksandar Vucic’s list, will chair the first session until a speaker is elected.

What needs to be agreed at the consultations?

Ana Brnabic, speaker of the outgoing Assembly, invited Student List representatives to talks on November 8 and asked that they take place during the coming week. She said the sides need to decide what the first session of the 15th convocation will look like, how many deputy speakers there will be, and how seats on parliamentary committees will be distributed, since neither the Rules of Procedure nor the law on the National Assembly regulates this. She also claimed that for the first time in parliamentary history nobody representing a new majority has contacted the Assembly’s services to start that conversation, and that a lack of dialogue would be a precedent.

Brnabic also recalled past practice: since 2012, the opposition has first been offered the chairmanship of certain committees, among them the Foreign Affairs Committee and the European Integration Committee, and the majority has so far left deputy speaker posts to the opposition as well.

Miroslav Alekic, president of the People’s Movement of Serbia and a former member of parliament, told Danas that the consultations should be convened by Brnabic herself, because as speaker in a caretaker mandate she holds that office, not the Student List representatives, who are not members of parliament until their mandates are confirmed. In his words, the consultations are not necessary, but they are needed. On deputy speakers, he said:

“Because if the students don’t want it, then not a single deputy speaker will come from the ranks of the former government, that is, the current opposition.”

What do the Student List and Vucic’s list say?

Svetlana Stanarevic, a professor at the Faculty of Security Studies and a Student List candidate, was asked whether the SNS would get a deputy speaker post and replied that agreements are still being worked out. She said the rule on opposition participation will be respected and that the exact scope will be set in upcoming talks, with the possibility that minority representatives also get a role. She answered Brnabic’s appeal to good practice more sharply:

“As for Mrs. Brnabic invoking some good practice, throughout their term and 14 years in power they truly did not respect absolutely any democratic principles, and their invoking them now seems inappropriate.”

Stanarevic told Insajder, as relayed by the portal 021, that preparations for constituting the Assembly are intense: “Preparations are intense, we are responsible and we believe we will meet all the requirements of those positions.” She added that the list believes “citizens will be satisfied with the staffing solution,” but that the name of the candidate for Assembly speaker will not be announced yet. From the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), she said, the list expects resistance: “We expect some kind of obstruction.” The answer, in her words, will be strict adherence to the Rules of Procedure. The Student Movement’s media team declined to tell Danas who the candidate is and whether the list will convene consultations.

At a press conference at SNS headquarters, Vucic confirmed that his list has received an invitation. “We received an invitation from the Assembly for Friday for consultations,” he said, adding that he does not know whether the other side will come because, as he put it, they “are run from the park.” At the same conference he said: “We will, of course, show respect for the institutions and appear at those consultations.” His list, he added, will also be present at the constitutive session, and the name of the parliamentary group is still to be agreed.

Students of the College of Civil Engineering and Geodesy posted on social media about the future government that the Student List is expected to propose. According to Mond, they wrote: “If it doesn’t do its job properly, we will replace it too.”

Who can elect the Assembly speaker?

Electing the speaker takes at least 126 votes, and a candidate can be proposed by at least 30 members of parliament. According to the final results of the October 25 elections, the Student List has 140 seats, the “Aleksandar Vucic - United Serbia” list has 103, and the remaining seven belong to minority lists: the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians and the Albanian Coalition have two seats each, while the lists of Rasim Ljajic, the SDA of Sandzak and Usame Zukorlic have one each. In other words, the Student List has enough votes to elect a speaker without anyone else’s support.

The agenda of the constitutive session has six items: confirming mandates, electing the speaker and deputy speakers, appointing the secretary general, and electing members of working bodies and permanent delegations to international institutions. The number of deputy speakers is set by the Assembly itself on the speaker’s proposal, and the Rules of Procedure do not fix it in advance, which is the very question the consultations are meant to settle. Constituting the Assembly starts a 90 day deadline for electing a new government, and according to Mond, the final date is February 15, 2027.