PACE: Early elections may have impact on major reforms

BELGRADE - The early parliamentary elections in Serbia may have an impact on major democratic reforms that the authorities have launched, a pre-electoral delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which ended its visit to Belgrade, has stated in a release.

The PACE delegation has announced that it ascertained that preparations for the elections that will be held on March 16, are running smoothly and called on political parties and entities to refrain from misusing administrative resources.

The PACE underlines that on the election day special attention should be paid to ensuring that all voting procedures are respected, especially in rural areas.

The delegation notes that it has received the assurances from the Republic Broadcasting Agency that equal free airtime will be allocated to political parties, and that the rules on commercial advertising will be respected.

The delegation also calls on political parties to refrain from influencing the editorial line of the media, and also expects political communication on the internet and via social networks to comply with the electoral code of ethics, the release reads.

The pre-electoral mission welcomed the Belgrade-Pristina agreement on voting by Serbia's citizens residing in the territory of Kosovo, which will be organized with the assistance of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

At the same time, the pre-electoral delegation regrets that most Albanian parties (from the south of central Serbia) decided to boycott the forthcoming elections.

The PACE pre-electoral delegation welcomes the first report of the Anti-Corruption Agency on the financing of the last election campaign, and...