Serbia's Monarchists Want King Back on Throne

Supporters of the restoration of the Serbian monarchy, abolished by the communists after World War II, have collected over 123,000 signatures of support, which will be submitted to parliament, the Kingdom of Serbia Association said.

The NGO, which operates under the patronage of Prince Aleksandar, the pretender to the throne, launched a petition from November 21 to 27, 2016, and will publish the final number of names after the verification process ends.

"After that, we will submit the initiative to parliament, and in case we have more than 150,000 signatures of citizens with the right to vote, it  should lead to an automatic change to the constitution, without a referendum," the head of the NGO's Novi Sad branch, Nikola Grbic, said.

Grbic styles himself a lawyer to Prince Peter and Prince Aleksandar, the son of the heir and heir to the throne respectively.

The Karadjordjevic dynasty ruled Serbia and then Yugoslavia during the 19th and 20th centuries with several decades of breaks.

In 1945, the victorious communists under Josip Tito declared a republic in Yugoslavia and the royal family was left in exile.

After the communist system and Yugoslavia collapsed, Prince Aleksandar came back to Serbia in 2001 with his wife. They live today in a former royal palace in Belgrade.

Serbia's royals used to wield a good deal of political power but Grbic insisted that what they were aiming for now was only a constitutional monarchy.

"The constitutional monarchy means the existence of a system in which the crown ... is both above and below policy," he explained.

Grbic added that the king's responsibilities would be more like a combination of those that the current President of Serbia and the Ombudsman possess.