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Ivanovic: Government to settle elections in Belgrade as the Kosovo's ones (N1, NIN)

The leader of the Civic Initiatives SDP Oliver Ivanovic said that in the local elections in Kosovo, Serbian authorities put everything on one card, and that Mitrovica was a symbol and a recipe for resolving local elections in Belgrade. "The results were not what we expected, although we had no illusion that we could won against such machinery. It is obvious that they put everything on this card. It is obvious that Mitrovica was not just Mitrovica, but a symbol and a recipe for solving the local elections, and in Belgrade," Ivanovic told Belgrade based weekly NIN, after the local elections in Kosovo, where the Serbian List won, supported by the government in Belgrade. As Ivanovic told NIN, it was not a real result that the Serbian List got 80 per cent of the votes and added that there are many invalid ballots, N1 reports parts of the interview. "There are even more than 2,000 so-called conditional votes. This quota requires a reconsideration of the electoral system. Simply, it is not possible that we have 8,800 who went out, with 2,000 being conditional and 500 invalid ballots. SDP received less than expected, but even those who received more have no reason to celebrate. They know how they got it," Ivanovic said, N1 reports. He said that the Civic Initiative did not emphasize objections to the regularity of the elections because they would not solve the essence. "And it is that the entire administrative apparatus and anti propaganda was used to explain that the state in Kosovo is linked only to the Serbian List. In such a situation citizens can choose whether to vote for the Serbian List, no matter how bad they evaluated it, or will give up the state," Ivanovic said, adding that pressures on him began when the elections were announced, and he announced in a direct or indirect manner his candidacy. Ivanovic said that, as he said, "his" sin became bigger because he thought that SDP had to appear in all northern municipalities and somewhere in the south of Kosovo. Asked who was intimidating and was the "chief of Serbian List at the local level", Ivanovic said that the Serbian List was made "by people who without a question listen to criminal circles". "They are guided from that circle. It is possible that Serbian authority does not know it? I know they know, because Vucic mentioned one of them, if he knows about him, I hope he does not know what methods he uses and all the jobs he does. I will not mention the name, but if you look at his statement about whose children are guarding KiM, it will be clear to you," he said. Asked if he had any discomfort because of the support of the part of the opposition from Belgrade (Dragan Sutanovac, Vuk Jeremic, Sasa Jankovic, Zoran Zivkovic), Ivanovic said he did not. "I would not like to be protected by someone from a criminal milieu, and that is all. The state must rely on honest and smart people, those who have an idea," Ivanovic said. When asked why he did not receive the support of the so-called. "the patriotic bloc of the opposition", he said that the position of that bloc was that these elections should not take place. "And I would argue with them when they offer a second solution, because I do not know what we would stop with that decision," he added. He said that in the internal dialogue on Kosovo, obligatory interlocutors must be "free-thinking Serbs from Kosovo and SPC, because it has and has to say thoughts about it," reports N1.