Belgrade: The postponement of the Belgrade assembly session scheduled for today was agreed by the senior officials of the party groups. The meeting today was aimed to elect the city’s executive government, including mayor.

Assembly speaker Branislav Belic, DS, stated that officials from his party led coalition, “For a European Belgrade”, the SPS coalition and the LDP have informed him that they would not be coming to the meeting, “because they believe it could spiral out of control, taking into account the events occurring in Belgrade over the last several days”.

He explained, in that case, there would be no quorum in the city assembly.

He said, “I will not be able to open the session because I will not have a quorum, for which 56 officials are needed. If representatives from the ‘For a European Belgrade’ list, SPS and LDP are not present, a quorum will not be possible.”

He added, “In that case, according to the Law on Local Self-Administration, I will have to inform the public that the next session will be scheduled at a later junction, and try to reach an agreement on that with the parties.”

The deadline for choosing a mayor, deputy mayor and the members of the city executive council expires on August 22. If a city government is not formed by then an imposed administration and new local elections in Belgrade will be announced.