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15:28 BELGRADE, September 18, 2003 – Vojislav Kostunica, the pollster’s frontrunner for Serbian president, will not stand in elections in November, a party colleague said today.
Dragan Jocic said that the Democratic Party of Serbia did not believe presidential elections at this point would help resolve the political crisis in Serbia, and repeated the party’s call for early parliamentary elections.
The Democratic Party of Serbia was once a member of the DOS coalition that came to power after the overthrow of the Milosevic regime, but quickly fell out with the Democratic Party, then led by murdered Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, over the pace of reform.
Kostunica, the former Yugoslav president, came top in last year’s elections for Serbian president, only to be thwarted by a Milosevic-era law requiring a 50 percent turnout for the result to stand. The stipulation remains for the first round of a presidential election, but not if it goes to a second.
Serbia’s Constitutional Court today refused to rule on an objection to the law lodged by the Democratic Party of Serbia.
Jocic would not say whether the party would call on voters to boycott the ballot on November 16.
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