On the occasion of the interview that a member of the City Election Commission in Belgrade, Mr. Zoran Alimpić, gave to N1 television on March 5, about the new elections for councilors of the City of Belgrade Assembly, I am obliged to react and strongly deny the untruths that have been stated in connection with the temporary body that is supposed to perform tasks within competences of the Assembly and executive bodies of Belgrade until the constitution of the new convocation of the city assembly after the upcoming elections.
Namely, Mr. Alimpić makes completely unfounded claims that the government intends to ensure that the current temporary body in the city of Belgrade illegally continues to perform its legal duties and, knowingly misquoting the Law on Local Self-Government, he presents a legally completely unfounded interpretation that a new temporary body must be appointed in which the opposition should have a majority.
The fact is that the Law on Local Self-Government stipulates that in the situation in which the city of Belgrade finds itself where after the elections held on December 17, 2023 the constitution of a new convocation of the Belgrade Assembly has not taken place, the Government shall appoint a temporary body, which will perform current and urgent tasks within the competence of the Assembly and the executive bodies of the city of Belgrade, but it is absolutely untrue that the law requires that this temporary body reflects the political composition of the elected assembly.
Mr. Alimpić should, first of all, read correctly the provision of Article 86, paragraph 4 of the Law on Local Self-Government, according to which the Government appoints the president and members of the temporary body, taking into account the political and national composition of the dissolved assembly of the local self-government unit, and not the elected assembly, as Mr. Alimpić, I believe knowingly, deceives first of all the public, and then his political sponsors, and maybe even himself.
Due to such tendentious actions, I am obliged to point out to the citizens of Belgrade, but also to the entire Republic of Serbia, the fact that due to known circumstances, a new City Assembly has not been constituted and that, in the legal sense, there is no other Assembly of Belgrade at the moment except the one that was dissolved on 30 October 2023, in accordance with which the Government of the Republic of Serbia will appoint a new temporary body, taking into account, as required by law, the political and national composition of the dissolved Belgrade City Assembly.