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Serbias Progressive Party pledged to form a new government by May 1 after winning an outright parliamentary majority in an election on a pledge to fight graft, fix the economy and join the European Union by 2020.

The party, led by Aleksandar Vucic, who forced the ballot two years earlier than scheduled, won 48.3 percent, more than polls predicted, Serbias Election Commission said today. Vucic will get 158 of the chambers 250 seats, while Prime Minister Ivica Dacics Socialist Party received 13.5 percent, for 44 seats, according to preliminary results. Vucic said he will consult with President Tomislav Nikolic and three other parties that made it into parliament.

Vucic, who was once an ally of late Balkan strongman Slobodan Milosevic, pledged to embrace painful austerity measures endorsed by the International Monetary Fund and lead Serbia into the EU two decades after the bloody Balkan civil wars. He said he will extend a hand to other parties before forming his administration.

There is no time to wait, Vucic told state TV broadcaster RTS. Changes are to be expected both among people from his own party as well as among some coalition partners, if there will be any.

The yield on Serbias 2021 dollar bond fell 13 basis points, or 0.13 percentage point, to 5.46 percent at 12:15 p.m. today in Belgrade, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The main index of 15 most actively traded stocks, Belex15, dropped 0.13 percent to 568.93 points, while the dinar was unchanged at 115.9515 per euro.

Five more parties, including three representing ethnic minorities, crossed the minimum vote threshold to make it into parliament. Final official results will be announced by March 20, according to the Election Commission.

Vucic is counting on billions of dollars of investment from the United Arab Emirates to create jobs in an economy where one in four is unemployed. EU accession also promises to raise living standards and economic output per capita, which at 36 percent of the trading blocs average, trails that of poorest member Bulgaria, according to Eurostat.

The election victory gives the Progressives the strongest lock on power by a single party since the communist days. Nikolic and central bank Governor Jorgovanka Tabakovic are senior members of the Progressives.

Forming a new government quickly will be an important sign for markets as parliament needs to ratify the loan agreement with the U.A.E., Timothy Ash, a London-based economist for emerging markets at Standard Bank Group Ltd., said by e-mail today. Renewing a coalition with the Socialists could raise questions over the commitment to maintain key reforms while delays in clinching a new IMF deal would also be negative.

Vucics critics fear a tendency to wield a powerful hand over institutions may give him too much influence in a country that has received criticism from the EU for weak rule of law and selective justice.

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Serb Progressives to Form Government After Election Win

Source: Tanjug

BELGRADE -- The Serb Progressive Party (SNS)-led coalition has won 158 seats in the Serbian parliament, the Republic Election Commission (RIK) has announced.

The SPS-led coalition secured 44 seats, the Democratic Party (DS) - 19, and the New Democratic Party -18 seats, according to the data based on 99.08 percent of the polling stations or 99.44 percent of the electorate.

Three minority parties made it to the parliament - the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (SVM) with six seats, the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) of Sandak with three seats, and the Party for Democratic Action-Riza Halimi with two seats.

In terms of percentage, this means that 48.34 percent of eligible voters or 1,727,444 citizens cast their ballot for the SNS.

13.51 percent or 482,710 of electors voted for the Socialists, 6.04 percent or 215,923 citizens for the DS and 5.71 percent or 203,916 citizens for the New Democratic Party.

When it comes to minority parties, 2.11 percent of the electorate or 75,248 citizens gave their vote to the SVM, and 0.95 percent of electors or 34,015 citizens voted for the SDA of Sandzak, and 0.68 percent of the electorate or 24,274 percent of the Party for Democratic Action led by Riza Halimi.

The Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) fell out of the parliament, having won just 4.24 percent of the vote, which means that 151,677 citizens voted for it. The Liberal Democratic Party also stayed below the threshold with 3.35 percent or 119,855 votes, the United Regions of Serbia (URS) with 3.04 percent and 108,693 votes.

The Dveri movement secured 3.57 percent of the electorate and got 127,753 votes. Two percent of citizens voted for the Serbian Radical Party, which means that the party got 71, 640 votes, while the slate titled "Enough of That" led by Sasa Radulovic got 2.08 percent or 74,445 votes.

Third Serbia got 0.46 percent of the vote or 16,364 votes, while the Russian Party and the Montenegrin Party got less than one percent - 0.18 percent each, the Patriotic Front - 0.13 percent, the List of National Communities-Emir Elfic- 0.11 percent and the Coalition of Citizens of All Nations and Nationalities - 0.09 percent of the vote.

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Progressives win 158 out of 250 parliament seats

Source: Tanjug

BELGRADE -- Preliminary results released by the City Election Commission (GIK) in Belgrade show that the Progressives (SNS) will have 64 seats in the new city assembly.

Head of the interim city administration Sinia Mali voted on Sunday (Beta)

They won 44.19 percent of the vote in the early local election held in the Serbian capital simultaneously with the parliamentary election, these results, based on 47.03 percent of all polling stations, showed.

Other parties that will have councilors in Belgrade's 110-seat assembly are the Democrats (DS) with 15.7 percent (22 seats), the SPS-PUPS-JS coalitions with 11.47 percent (16 seats), and the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) with 6.2 percent (8 seats).

All others were left below the five-percent threshold by voters on Sunday, including the Liberal Democrats (LDP) who received 3.13 percent, Boris Tadi's New Democratic Party (NDS) with 3.7 percent, and Dveri with 3.55 percent.

The future mayor of Belgrade will be chosen by the city assembly.

The commission will hold another news conference at noon today and reveal the latest data.

BELGRADE -- An analyst believes the parties left out of parliament - the DSS, the URS, and the LDP - will have a hard time attempting to survive on the political scene.

BELGRADE -- U.S. Ambassador Michel Kirby says according to the election results, the voters have shown that they are expecting economic reforms and creation of new jobs.

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Progressives in convincing victory in Belgrade

BELGRADE, March 16 -- Leader of the Serbian progressive party Aleksandar Vicuc said that his party achieved best results in the 25-year-long parliamentary history, with 40 parliamentary seats more than needed to form government by themselves.

According to the preliminary results of the parliamentary elections on Sunday published by the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), they won 49,3 percent of votes, which is around 160 places in the parliament of 250 seats.

"We are ready to talk with everyone and hear their ideas about what we could achieve together for the benefit of Serbia," Vucic said, explaining that he is ready to cooperate with opponent parties if they show willingness to "work seriously."

At a press conference at Progressive's headquarters, Vucic said that Serbia will continue its EU path and tighten cooperation with Russia, United States and China as well as the fight against corruption.

"The biggest task is to fight unemployment, and I promise that there will be a dramatic change in that area at the half of our next mandate," Vucic said.

"From this moment on," he said, "we are no longer fighting for success at the next election but for the future generations."

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Preliminary results show Progressives party in Serbia leads in polls-Eastday

The All Progressives Congress has said it is greatly distressed at the deaths of 19 job seekers at the venues of the Nigerian Immigration Service job test on Saturday, calling it a direct consequence of 15 years of misrule by the PDP-led federal government.

In a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the Minister of Interior must bear direct responsibility for the needless deaths by immediately stepping down from his post, if he has any honour left, or be fired.

APC commiserated with the families of the victims and wished those who were injured a speedy recovery.

Massive mindless looting of the public treasury has seen funds that could have been used to create millions of jobs end up in the deep pockets of corrupt government and PDP officials, without any consequence for the thieves, while the incompetent federal government led by a clueless President continues to deceive the public with cooked figures showing job creation where indeed there have been job losses,.

Today, sadly, the truth has been laid bare: 5,000 or so vacancies declared by NIS have attracted over six million applicants, from which over half a million was shortlisted, according to published reports, and the desperation of our youth to eke out a decent living has been exploited by a villainous government that forced each applicant to cough out N1,000 thus raking in N6bn from jobless people, the party said.

Is it true that the Minister directly presided over the recruitment and money-making venture? Could this have been part of the governments fund-raising measures for the 2015 elections? Why was a huge number of applicants invited for only 5,000 jobs or less? Why was such a shoddy arrangement made for the test when so many people were invited? Could the test not have been done in batches to avoid a stampede? How much indeed was realised from this glaring extortion of job seekers? What happened to the money?

An investigation into the needless deaths of our youth, under a government that has failed them in every respect, must seek to answer those questions and recommend ways to avoid a recurrence. At least if a government cannot create jobs, it must neither profit from its incompetence nor send the victims of its ineptitude to their early graves.

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NIS job deaths, consequence of PDPs misrule APC