Serbia's New Parliament Meets 17 November; Student List Says It Is Ready

Serbia's newly elected National Assembly will hold its constitutive session on Tuesday, 17 November, at 10:00. The session was called on Sunday, 8 November, by Ana Brnabić, the outgoing speaker who is also serving as acting president. It will have six agenda items and will be chaired by the oldest member of the new house, Stojan Radenović, as the rules require.

Student List: 'We are ready'

The Student List (Studentska lista – Studenti pobeđuju), which won 140 of the 250 seats in the 25 October snap election, reacted the same day with a short post on X: the date of the session followed by "We are ready." Later on Sunday, Dejan Šoškić, a former governor of the National Bank of Serbia elected on the list, told N1's programme Utisak nedelje that the future MPs had already agreed on who will be their candidate for speaker. He said the name would be announced by the student movement, not by him.

Šoškić said the incoming MPs were in constant contact and were studying the assembly's rules of procedure. In his view the process will speed up once parliament is constituted: committees first, then the government, with presidential elections to complete the cycle by the end of the year. He also said that, under the law, the elected parliamentary group owns its mandates and makes its own decisions.

Brnabić asks for talks before the session

In an appearance on TV Pink on Sunday evening, reported by Beta, Brnabić said that no one from the Student List had contacted the assembly's services ahead of the first sitting, which she described as a first. She said the governing majority had always offered deputy-speaker posts to opposition groups, five or six depending on how many groups took part, and that opposition MPs had traditionally chaired committees such as foreign affairs and European integration. Those questions, she said, used to be settled before the first session, and she invited the list's representatives to contact her or the services during the coming week.

What happens on 17 November

At a constitutive sitting the assembly confirms the mandates of the 250 MPs, after which members take their oath and elect the speaker and deputy speakers. Under the constitution, a candidate for prime minister must then be proposed by the president after consultations with parliamentary groups. Šoškić and Ivanka Popović have been mentioned in the media as possible candidates for prime minister; the list has neither confirmed nor denied the names.