Serbian MPs Vow to Continue Rival Hunger Strikes

The leader of the small far-right opposition Dveri movement, Bosko Obradovic, on Monday vowed to continue the hunger strike that he started on Sunday in front of parliament until the government negotiates with the opposition on a delay to elections due on June 21.

Obradovic wants elections postponed for six months because there are "neither the health nor the democratic conditions" for them in June, he said.

"It is difficult to estimate at this moment how long this will last; what is certain that I have to stick to what I said, to be here, and to go on hunger strike while my health serves me, until what I asked for is fulfilled," Obradovic said.

Meanwhile, two ruling Serbian Progressive Party MPs, Aleksandar Martinovic and Sandra Bozic, started their own hunger counter-strike on Sunday, hours after Obradovic, complaining that the prosecution had failed to launch proceedings against Obradovic and his supporters for what they called rioting last Friday in front of parliament.

On Friday, Obradovic and some of his supporters confronted the Health Minister, Zlatibor Loncar, outside parliament, not allowing him to enter the building. During the tussle, another ruling party MP, Marijan Risticevic, end up with a torn jacket.

Bozic on Monday said their hunger strike was not a form of "pressure on the prosecution, but a protest, because the prosecution is not doing its job".

An independent MP, Miladin Sevarlic, started the wave of MPs on hunger strike on Sunday on the steps of parliament over a completely different issue - namely over violations of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Serbia in Kosovo, where he said that UN Resolution 1244 from 1999, which acknowledged Serbia's sovereignty over Kosovo, was not being respected. ...