Serbian Parliament Speaker Slavica Djukic-Dejanovic reiterated on Wednesday during a session of the Serbian parliament Committee on Kosovo-Metohija that the local elections would be called on March 13, at the same time the Serbian president is due to call parliamentary elections.

Djukic Dejanovic pointed out once more that the local elections would not be general because the mandate of local self-government has not yet expired in certain municipalities.

The parliament is currently holding a session on calling and staging local and parliamentary elections in Serbia.

Committee Chairman Ljubomir Kragovic said that he invited Minister of Human Rights, Public Administration and Local Self-Government Milan Markovic and Minister for Kosovo-Metohija Goran Bogdanovic to attend the session but they failed to show up.

Elezovic expects presidential poll in December

Chairman of the Democratic Party's (DS) provincial committee in Vojvodina Dusan Elezovic told Tanjug on Wednesday that he expects that the presidential elections will be held in December, as it was announced earlier.

Stressing that the elections could be held anytime this year, he underlined that the elections will be regular no matter when they take place in the course of 2012.

“I expect the presidential elections to be held in December, just as it was announced,” Elezovic said, reiterating his statement for the Novi Sad daily Dnevnik that scheduling presidential elections for the same day as the others would not significantly change the course of the campaign or the issues.

According to the daily, Elezovic said that presidential elections could be held at the same time as parliamentary, local and provincial elections - in late April or early May.

In such a case, these would not be early elections as the presidential elections must be held by the end of the year anyway, he said, adding the decision will be made in the next few days.

SNS: All elections should be held at same time

Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) leader Tomislav Nikolic said Wednesday that he cannot wait for presidential elections to be called, and that it would be more rational if all elections were staged at the same time.

That would be less expensive, he underlined, adding that candidates would be discussed only once the elections were called.

Nikolic inked on the behalf of SNS an agreement on joint participation in the forthcoming parliamentary elections with the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises.