Serb Progressives Win Majority in Parliament on EU Pledge

[Iterate]

Source: Bloomberg.com

By Gordana Filipovic and Misha Savic Mar 16, 2014 11:22 PM GMT+0100

The Serbian Progressive Party led by Aleksandar Vucic won an outright parliamentary majority in a general election on a pledge to fight graft, fix the economy and join the European Union by 2020.

Vucic’s party, which forced the ballot two years earlier than scheduled, won 48.8 percent, more than polls predicted, for 157 of the chamber’s 250 seats, Serbia’s independent election monitor said today. Prime Minister Ivica Dacic’s Socialist Party received 14 percent, for 45 seats, said Marko Blagojevic, director of monitor the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy, citing preliminary results.

Vucic, who was once an ally of late Balkan strongman Slobodan Milosevic, pledged to embrace painful austerity measures endorsed by the International Monetary Fund and make Serbia the third former Yugoslav republic to join the EU two decades after the bloody Balkan civil wars. He said he will “extend a hand” to other parties before forming a new government by May 1.

“I’m sure that Serbia will continue its European path,” Vucic told a media briefing after his party declared victory. “We are ready for that kind of dialogue with all the relevant political parties.”

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-16/serb-progressives-win-majority-in-parliament-on-eu-pledge.html

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This is how it's done in the EU.

Last April Serbia and Kosovo reached an agreement aimed at normalising relations, with the intent of accelerating the process of full membership for both.

[delrem]

1. So a win by a former ally of late Balkan strongman Milosevic assures that the IMF wins again.

Cool "how it's done in the EU", even tho' this wasn't "done in the EU".

[LarryNM]

2. More Harmful Austerity for the People and More $$$ for IMF

All done of course in the name of "freedom", "democracy", "progress", blah, blah, blah.

[Jack Rabbit]

3. Excuse me, I'm a little confused

"Progressive Serbs . . . embrace painful austerity measures endorsed by the International Monetary Fund."

I guess the word "progressive" means something else in Serbian than in English.

[iamthebandfanman]

4. oxymoron

'serb progressives'

I still, to this day, have yet to meet a Serbian online that wasn't
A) militant as hell
B) nationalistic as hell
C) full of hate.

which ive always found .. well.. odd... given what the Nazis did inside their region and to their ethnic group (but then again, look at all the neo-nazis in Russia now.. id imagine folks who lived during the late 30s and early 40s are rolling over in their graves).

while I don't hold my encounters as proof that their entire population is full of egotistical nutjobs ... because I know online folks don't represent them as a whole... my opinion of them as a nation isn't very high.