BELGRADE -- The Serbian parliament is to elect its speaker and three deputies, and to appoint the secretary Tuesday.
Source: Beta
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The Serbian parliament has six deputy speakers, three of them elected last week - Nataša Jovanović from the Serb Radical Party (SRS), Radojko Obradović from the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) and Milutin Mrkonjić from the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS).
The candidates for the post of deputy speaker are Božidar Delić from the Serb Radical Party, Miloljub Albijanić from the G17 Plus and Esad Džudžević, on behalf of the parties of the national minorities, to whom the Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP) has ceded the candidacy.
The parliament also has to fill the posts in the parliamentary committees, which are presently made up only of elected members from the Serb Radical Party, the Democratic Party of Serbia and the Socialist Party of Serbia.
The parliament is also to appoint the delegations, representing the parliament in international bodies.
The candidate for the secretary of the Serbian parliament is Milan Lučić, the former secretary of the federal parliament.
After the speaker is appointed, Lučić will be nominated by Oliver Dulić.
Dulić announced that he would nominate Marko Danilović and Miloš Todorović as Lučić's deputies.
The term Democratic Bloc has tremendous significance to the people of Serbia and Europe, and is the precise term to use to describe the Coalition Government, and should be used often. Most of the Political Parties in Serbia have been Democratic, since the welcomed overthrow over Milosevic’s autocratic rule seven years ago. Each Party has a different level of Democracy, and the best form of Democracy is a Liberal Democracy. A Liberal Democracy is a Representative Democracy along with the protection of minorities, the Rule of Law, a separation of powers, and protection of liberties (thus the name Liberal) of speech, assembly, Religion, and property. The Rule of Law is the principle that Governmental Authority is legitimately exercised only in accordance with written, publicly disclosed Laws adopted and enforced in accordance with established procedure. This means Laws are passed by a majority of Democratically Elected Honorable Members of Parliament, after proper Parliamentary debate and scrutiny. The principle is intended to be a safeguard against arbitrary Governance. Under this model the State is divided into branches, and each branch of the state has separate and independent powers and areas of responsibility. The normal division of branches is into the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial. Liberty is generally considered a concept of political philosophy and identifies the condition in which an individual has the ability to act according to his or her own free will.
The Parties that adhere to these Liberal Democratic Principles are all the Parties except for the Socialists and Radicals. I would class the Socialists and the Radicals as being Parties of the Representative Democracies, rather than the Liberal Democracies. Representative Democracy involves the selection of Government Officials by a majority vote of the people. Representatives may be elected by a particular district (or constituency), or represent the electorate as a whole as in many proportional systems, with some using a combination of the two. Some Representative Democracies also incorporate elements of Direct Democracy, such as Referenda. A characteristic of Representative Democracy is that while the Representatives are elected by the people, to act in their interest, they retain the freedom to exercise their own judgment as how best to do so. While the Democratic Bloc in Serbia genuinely welcomes constructive criticism, I believe that the West needs to encourage the Democratic Bloc at this particular time. The previous Government lasted 3 years, and there is a good chance that this Parliament will last 3 years. The Parliamentarians of the Democratic Bloc will act professionally by not allowing their personal differences to interfere with the responsibilities to the people, and to Democracy.
(The other J.S., 22 May 2007 15:29)