Serbia PM Mulling Fresh Elections, Experts Say

Serbia's canny Prime Minister could go for joint presidential and parliamentary elections in spring 2017 in order to mobilize voters and boost the chances of his party's presidential candidate, experts say.

"In Serbia, there is always a possibility that elections will be held, especially since 2012 when the Progressive Party took power," Bojan Klacar, director of the Belgrade-based Center for Free Elections and Democracy, CESID, told BIRN.

"I do not think it is a real possibility - but because of my experience, I cannot rule this out," he told BIRN.

"From the point of view of the citizens there is no need to hold them. But it is hard to say what will happen as all decisions are made by one person, the Prime Minister," Klacar said.

In 2012, Aleksandar Vucic's ruling Serbian Progressive Party won 64 of 250 seats in the parliament and formed a government with the Socialist Party, which won 25 seats and took the post of Prime Minister. The coalition was strengthened with other minor parties and independent MPs.

In 2014, Vucic, pushed for new elections which were held in March in which his Progressive Party won 135 seats, leaving most of the old opposition parties out of parliament. Vucic became the new Prime Minister but with the support of his old partners in the Socialist party.

The government called another snap election in April 2016 on the grounds of seeking more stability and a national consensus.

Some suspected that another reason was because provincial elections were being held at the same time in the province of Vojvodina, which was the last bastion of the opposition, and the ruling party thought a double election would bring out its voters in force.

Most members of the new government under Vucic held exactly...