"When I see evidence that 126 Narodna Skupstina deputies demand my resignation, it will not take me an hour to put the election of a new chairman of the parliament on the table. I will resign even before any discussion takes place," Tomislav Nikolic told Serbia's news agency Tanyug.
On Tuesday night, Nikolic, the second man in the Serbian Radical Party, which finished first in the January 21 parliamentary election with nearly 29% of the vote, was elected speaker by 142 votes. His election sparked international protests, notably because the leader of his party, Vojislav Seselj, is in prison, having been tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
The Radical Party has strengthened its support base before the election over its firm stance on Kosovo, which many Serbs do not want to see as an independent entity, and has been cool on European offers of EU membership in return for backing down on Kosovo.
