Student List to Elect Assembly Speaker by Majority Vote
After the November 13 consultations, the Student List says it will pick the Assembly speaker and deputy speakers by majority, while Ana Brnabic and Milenko Jovanov say opposition rights are shrinking.
The Student List and the “Aleksandar Vucic - United Serbia” list met on Friday, November 13, at the House of the National Assembly to discuss the constitutive session of the new Assembly, scheduled for Tuesday, November 17, at 10 a.m. After the meeting, the Student List announced that it will elect the Assembly speaker, the number of deputy speakers and their names by majority vote. Ana Brnabic, the Assembly speaker in a caretaker mandate, and Milenko Jovanov, head of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) parliamentary group, responded that this ends an established practice and that opposition rights will be reduced.
Ahead of the consultations, we reported that SNS had confirmed its attendance while the Student List had not. It has since come, and this is its first appearance in this role. According to the distribution of seats, the Student List holds 140 of 250 seats and United Serbia holds 103. The remaining seats belong to minority lists.
What did the Student List announce after the consultations?
The consultations were closed to the public and lasted about an hour. Brnabic and Jovanov arrived first, and shortly after noon they were joined by Mario Reljanovic and Aleksandar Cupic of the Student List. Representatives of the minority lists also sat at the table: the Hungarian SVM, Rasim Ljajic’s party, SDA, SPP and the Albanian coalition.
Before the meeting, the student movement said that talks on technical issues “will not become a space for political deals and negotiations behind closed doors.” After the meeting, the Student List published a report. It says the other lists were told that the speaker, the number of deputy speakers and their names will be chosen by majority at the session, and that everyone agreed the vote should be public. On whether it might cede some deputy speaker posts to others, the list gave no answer:
“As our parliamentary group discusses all issues democratically and makes decisions in the same way, the public will be informed in good time about the possibility of leaving a certain number of deputy speakers to the other parliamentary groups.”
A different rule applies to committees. Assembly committees will be formed in proportion to the size of the parliamentary groups, and committee chairs will not be chosen by the session but by each committee separately. International delegations are set on the speaker’s proposal, after the speaker consults the heads of the parliamentary groups. From the Student List report:
“Assembly committees will be formed in proportion to the size of the parliamentary groups, and committee chairs will be decided by majority vote in each individual committee. International delegations will be determined on the basis of a proposal by the Assembly speaker, who will first hold consultations with the heads of the parliamentary groups, in line with Article 26, paragraph 2 of the Rules of Procedure.”
What do Brnabic and Jovanov say?
Jovanov claims the Student List is introducing extra qualifications for deputies and that a plenary commission would assess who can chair a committee. “What is a fact, and what we can already say today, is that the rights of the opposition will be reduced,” he told reporters after the consultations. He added that this could also limit deputies’ right to propose laws, and said of the commission: “We will never agree to plenary commissions determining that for us.”
Brnabic repeated that since 2012 the practice has been to offer the opposition deputy speaker posts and the chairing of certain committees, and that this was discussed before the constitutive session. At this meeting, she says, that did not happen:
“Nobody at this meeting asked us, nor will anyone ask us, how many deputy speaker posts we think we should have, given that we won more than 1,700,000 votes of citizens of the Republic of Serbia and have 103 deputies.”
According to her, the opposition was told it will learn on Monday, November 16, how many deputy speaker posts it gets. “But they are the government and they are not interested in agreement and dialogue with the opposition,” Brnabic said. On the choice of committee chairs she said: “A people’s deputy is a people’s deputy.” She again called the Student List’s approach “revolutionary terror.” She added that no representative of the minority groups was asked how many deputy speaker posts they want.
The date should be read as Brnabic’s account of what she was told. In the parts of the Student List statement carried by Nova and Vreme, Monday is not mentioned. Nova’s report says SNS was told it would learn the number of posts “on Tuesday,” while Danas, Vreme and Nis TV report Monday.
What comes before the constitutive session?
The first deadline is Monday. If the Student List announces that day how many deputy speaker posts it is offering, that will be the first sign of whether the opposition and minority lists will get any posts at all. The Student List has an absolute majority and can elect the leadership on its own, but it has not said it will not offer posts to others.
The session agenda has six items: confirming mandates, electing the speaker and deputy speakers, appointing the secretary general, electing members of working bodies and electing permanent delegations to international institutions. The session is opened by the oldest deputy, Stojan Radenovic of the United Serbia list. The Student List has not yet officially announced its candidate for speaker. According to Nova, Professor Katarina Scepanovic and Assistant Professor Aleksandar Cupic are unofficially mentioned.
