Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said that after half of the ballots were counted, Serbian Progressive Party projections show that President Aleksandar Vucic won 47% of the vote and expects to hold around 130 seats in the the assembly of 250 members.
Serbia’s ruling populists claimed a sweeping victory Sunday in the country’s parliamentary elections, which were marred by reports of major irregularities both during a tense campaign and on voting day, according to early projections.
Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said that with half of the ballots counted, Serbian Progressive Party projections show President Aleksandar Vucic won 47% of the vote and expects to hold around 130 seats in the assembly of 250 members. The main opposition group, Serbia Against Violence, received about 23 percent of the vote, Mr. Brnabic said.
The main issue in Sunday’s parliamentary and local elections was between Mr Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and a centrist coalition that is trying to weaken the populists who have governed the struggling Balkan state since 2012. Serbs vote on Sunday to elect their Parliament, less than 18 months after the last legislative elections and in a context of record inflation and massive demonstrations against violence which have forged a new opposition.
Polling stations opened at 7:00 a.m. (06:00 GMT) and will close at 8:00 p.m. (19:00 GMT).
The first results are expected in the evening – the latest polls gave the Serbian progressive party of President Aleksandar Vucic (SNS, nationalist right) in the majority, with 40% to 45% of the vote.
At 11:00 a.m., the participation rate stood at 9.94%, according to the electoral commission, very slightly higher than that recorded in the previous election, in 2022 (9.59%).
“I expect a good turnout” And “to an overwhelming victory” declared Mr. Vucic as he went to vote on Sunday morning. “Serbia has many important tasks to accomplish in the coming period”added the president, omnipresent in the media in the weeks before the elections, where he threatened chaos in the country if the majority was not renewed.
Facing him, a new coalition, born from the massive demonstrations against the violence which shook the country in May, after the death of 19 people in two shootings – including one in a primary school.
“I hope that at the end of the day we will have a strong turnout in Belgrade and throughout the country, and that voters will have the freedom to express their choice”declared in a polling station in the capital Dobrica Veselinovic, candidate of this coalition called “Serbia against violence”.
During the last legislative elections, coupled with presidential and municipal elections in April 2022, the SNS and its allies won 120 of the 250 seats in parliament, and Aleksandar Vucic was re-elected for a second term.
After the shootings, the opposition demanded new legislative elections, which Mr. Vucic called at the beginning of November, hoping to strengthen his control.
The opposition coalition campaigned advocating “a life without fear of the powerful”a peaceful society and an improvement in the economic situation, in a country hit hard by inflation, particularly in food.
The annual inflation rate exceeded 15% in the spring, before decreasing to 8% in November.
The president also campaigned on the fight against rising prices, and promised in the coming years an increase in the average salary to reach 1,400 euros, and an increase in retirement pensions to 650 euros.
In September, the median salary in the country was 560 euros.
“For the change”
The campaign was marked by the presidential camp’s control over the media – according to several studies, the president alone took up 40% of the airtime devoted to news.
She also finished consecrating the return to politics of ultranationalist figures of the past, including Vojislav Seselj.
The latter, who was a political mentor of Aleksandar Vucic when he was still a member of the Serbian Radical Party (far right), was convicted of crimes against humanity by international justice.
He is today an ally of the SNS for the local elections in Belgrade, a municipal vote which will be held in several cities at the same time as the legislative elections.
Another ally of the president, the Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ivica Dacic, made him applaud, during the campaign, the grandson of Slobodan Milosevic, Marko, a member of his party, the SPS (Serbian Socialist Party, which was also that of Slobodan Milosevic, editor’s note).
The opposition also pointed to risks of irregularity or fraud, while an investigation published a few days before the elections accused the ruling party of buying votes, by offering employees of a call center triple their salary on election day if they provide proof of their vote for the SNS.
The opposition parties, targeted by daily attacks from the majority or from media that support it, have however been able to count on the support of a movement initiated by several intellectual and popular figures, called ProGlas. Its initiators traveled the country to call for a vote “for the change”.
“All of Serbia has the same dream and I have come to convey it to you. This dream is to re-appropriate the State, to re-appropriate the institutions. This dream is to once again be the country of smiling people and to once again become the country that will be led by the best of us, not the worst”launched judge Miodrag Majic, one of the founders of ProGlas, on Thursday evening in front of several thousand people in the capital.