"Not too late for authorities and opposition to reach deal, election boycott is an extreme solution"

"It's important that all stakeholders involved inform the public in a timely manner about the key messages and key results," says Klacar

It's too early to predict whether an agreement will be reached between Serbia's authorities and the opposition, says CeSID executive director Bojan Klacar, who believes that after one or two more meetings, it will likely emerge whether there is a common denominator.

Asked about the format of the talks, which implies that a part of the meeting is open to the public, after which the participants would speak "behind closed doors" - Klacar notes that it's important to create a format in which all actors will feel "comfortable" because the dialogue between the authorities and opposition comes after a long time.

"It's important that all stakeholders involved inform the public in a timely manner about the key messages and key results," Klacar

told Tanjug.

Asked if he thinks the opposition has already made a decision to boycott the elections - because they said after yesterday's talks that there was very little time and that "the government was pushing them into a boycott" - while on the other hand, the talks with authorities had just started - Klacar says he doesn't believe they have already made a decision.

"I don't believe that the opposition made a decision on boycott, first, because they need to talk among themselves in order to expand such a front, should the boycott occur. On the other hand, parties in the process of dialogue with the government have with this shown that they care about finding some kind of common denominator," Klacar said.

He believes that it is still not too late to reach a deal, and that by the second half of September, when the opposition said it would announce its decision on boycott, there will certainly be several more meetings when it will be known if there is a thread around which the two sides can agree.

"If this thread exists, there is enough time to incorporate these changes into the existing regulation both legally and technically," Klacar added.

He assessed that boycott is an extreme political solution and as such can bring a lot to those who decide in favor of it, but can also cause great harm - therefore, "middle solutions" cannot be expected if such a decision is made.

"It will either be a very good decision for the opposition or a very bad one. The opposition has to be very careful in considering, not only what the political consequences will be two or three months after the election, but what will happen a year or two after the election, because basically, for them, nothing will be the same as it is now," says Klacar.

When it comes to the international factor which, according to some opposition politicians, could influence the outcome of the talks, Klacar says it should be neither overestimated nor underestimated.

"We are prone to overestimate this factor very often. I deeply believe that the key to a solution depends solely on domestic actors, not because international actors don't have their own interests, but because the issue of elections is a dominant existential issue for people living in Serbia," concluded Klacar.

(Telegraf.rs/Tanjug)