The Democratic Party (DS), led by Boris Tadic, and the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), led by Ivica Dacic, on Wednesday reached agreement on support by the SPS-led coalition for Tadic in the Serbian presidential run-off, scheduled for 20 May.
The two parties also agreed to continue their partnership, the DS said in a press release.
The two parties will continue working on the establishment of a parliamentary majority in the new Serbian parliament, following the 6 May general elections. They are coalition partners in the current government.
Talks on candidates for ministerial and other positions in the new government as well as in local self-government units will be held until the completion of the electoral process.
Apart from Dacic, who is viewed as a key player in forthcoming efforts to form a new coalition government following the results of Sunday's general elections, the deputy president of Tadic's Democratic Party and Belgrade Mayor, Dragan Djilas, is mentioned by the local media as the second possible candidate for the new prime minister.
According to Serbian press reports on Wednesday, Serbia's acting president Slavica Djukic Dejanovic said that the new president, to be elected in the 20 May run-off, would decide on the prime minister-designate after the second round of the presidential elections.
Djukic Dejanovic, the parliament's speaker and vice-president of Dacic's SPS party, was quoted by the "Politika" daily as saying that the new president would propose the PM-designate.
Tadic, the last Serbian president, and Tomislav Nikolic of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) will compete in the run-off as the two top-vote getters in the first round of the presidential elections. Tadic won 25.34 per cent of the vote and Nikolic 24.99 per cent. Dacic, the candidate of a coalition led by the SPS, won 14.24 per cent of the vote, the state election commission reported on Monday after counting nearly 98 per cent of the ballots.
Djukic Dejanovic said she would convene the inaugurating session of the new parliament after the presidential run-off.
In the 6 May general elections, the coalition led by Nikolic's Progressive Party won 24.01 per cent or 73 of the 250 seats in parliament, while the coalition led by Tadic's party won 22.07 per cent of the vote or 67 seats.
The coalition led by Dacic's party won 14.54 per cent of the vote (44 seats in parliament), followed by Vojislav Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia with seven per cent of the vote (21 seats). The coalition Preokret, led by Cedomir Jovanovic's Liberal Democratic Party, won 6.53 per cent of the vote (20 seats), while Mladjan Dinkic's United Regions of Serbia won 5.51 per cent of the vote (16 seats).
The election threshold in Serbia is five per cent.
