Protests in Serbia Archive
Law on proclamation of election results sent to assembly

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belgrade, feb. 7 (tanjug) - the national assembly of serbia received on friday the government draft law which proclaims as final the preliminary results of elections for town and municipal assembly deputies, as set out in the report by the mission of the organization for security and cooperation in europe (osce), and which will be examined at a special assembly session on feb. 11.

the law declares as final, in keeping with the osce mission report, the preliminary results of the nov. 17, 1997 elections, for deputies of the municipal assemblies of pirot, kraljevo, uzice, smederevska palanka, vrsac, sokobanja, pancevo, jagodina, zrenjanin, lapovo, sabac, stari grad, vracar, savski venac, zvezdara, rakovica, palilula, cukarica and vozdovac, and deputies for the city councils of kragujevac, nis and belgrade.

the individual election of deputies, based on the draft law, is established by municipal election commissions, i.e. the city election commissions, within three days of this law taking effect.

if the election commissions fail to comply, within the mentioned period of time, the ministry of justice will establish the individual election of deputies within the next 48 hours.

the decisions of municipal and city election commissions or the rulings of the ministry of justice cannot be appealed in a court of law.

constituent sessions of the municial and the city assemblies will be called by the president of the national assembly within five days of the proclamation of the established election results. the law takes effect one day after it is published in the official gazette of the republic of serbia.

in the explanation of the draft law, the government said that the preliminatry results of the nov. 17 elections, taken by the osce mission as the basis of its report, have been disputed in a number of complaints to the election commissions, appels to courts and special legal instruments to court rulings.

the election disputes have postponed the determining of the final election results in many municipalities contained in the osce mission report and thus postponed, for an unacceptably long period, the normal functioning of the local organs of power. this, together with the other events resulting from these disputes, has caused damage to the republic both in the internal and external spheres, the explanation said.

the government said that because of this, and due to the country's interest in promoting relations with osce and the international community, there is an urgent need for overcoming the existing situation.

the draft special law which declares as final the results of the nov. 17, 1996 results in keeping with the osce mission report, creates, within the constitutionally determined political system in serbia, a legal basis for the speedy resolution of the created disputes and their harmful effects. [end]vk/jpe/mb