An opposition coalition is calling for the cancellation of the vote in Belgrade, where thousands of people demonstrated.
A few hours after the closing of the polling stations, the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, claimed, on Sunday December 17, the victory of his party, the Serbian Progressive Party (nationalist right), in the legislative elections. The presidential party would emerge strengthened, with at least 127 seats out of the 250 in the Serbian Parliament. “We will have an absolute majority in Parliament” he declared confidently at a press conference, based on 76% of the ballots counted on Sunday evening.
However, the official results are not expected before Monday evening, recalled the opposition united under the banner “Serbia against violence” (SPN), which would win 23.5% of the votes, according to estimates.
The defeated pro-European liberal party denounces intimidation against the media and NGOs. International observers have not been able to confirm systematic electoral fraud, but the opposition’s suspicions are founded.
“Any effort to tip the scales is cause for concern and could potentially impact the outcome. And I think we were very clear in our report on that. There wasn’t really any play during these elections”said Farah Karimi of the OSCE.
Observers also confirmed other pre-election manipulations denounced by other parties. They say they witnessed irregularities such as ballot stuffing, group voting by large crowds, as well as problems with vote secrecy. They also mention a massive arrival of people from outside Belgrade to vote in Belgrade, people who are neither from Belgrade nor from Serbia to vote in the capital.
Monday evening, at the call of this coalition, thousands of people demonstrated in Belgrade to denounce the election results. The opposition is calling for the cancellation of the vote in the capital, where Aleksandar Vucic’s camp won by 23,000 votes. According to the opposition, “more than 40,000 people” voted in the capital without residing there, transported by bus from Republika Srpska, the Serbian entity in neighboring Bosnia.
The final OSCE report will be published in two months. However, these alleged frauds would have had no impact on these elections. The majority of the country voted for the ruling party. The opposition claims that its defeat is due to the omnipresence of President Aleksandar Vučić in the Serbian media and intimidation against civil servants.
The opposition coalition, born from the demonstrations which shook the country in May after the death of 19 people in two shootings, has continued to denounce a biased campaign, tainted according to it by fraud. Ahead of the vote, a journalist also claimed – with supporting video – to have uncovered a system of buying votes in favor of the SNS. Accusations that Prime Minister Ana Brnabić brushed aside during a press conference in the evening.
