The Serbian president, the populist Aleksandar Vucic, proclaimed the victory of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) with an absolute majority in the early parliamentary elections held this Sunday.
Serbia yesterday held elections for the national Parliament, the Assembly of the autonomous region of Vojvodina and municipal elections in 65 cities, including Belgrade, with 1.6 million voters out of the 6.5 million in the country, where the opposition coalition "Serbia against violence" (SPN) called for a repeat after denouncing vote manipulation, and announced protests to "defend" the electoral will.
The vote projections, not yet final, from the NGO Center for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID) and the population agency Ipsos indicate that the SNS will have around 128 of the 250 seats in Parliament.
"The result is clear, we will have an absolute majority," Vucic told reporters in Belgrade. "A difficult period awaits us. We will follow the European path," said Vucic, referring to the normalization process with Kosovo, a former Serbian province, independent since 2008. The European Union (EU), to which Serbia wants to join, mediates between the opposing parties.
The early elections were held this Sunday in the face of growing pressure from the West for Serbia and Kosovo to reach a solution for the normalization of their relations.
On the other hand, Vucic, who did not present himself as a candidate this Sunday, indicated that there will be no new elections in the country until 2027.
Behind the SNS is followed by the opposition coalition 'Serbia against violence' (SPN), with 65 deputies, according to CeSID's estimate.
According to these data, the socialist party (SPS), traditional partner of the SNS, would have 18 seats, the right-wing opposition coalition NADA 13, and the new right-wing formation 'We-Voice of the People' another 13 parliamentarians. The parties of the Hungarian, Bosniak and Croat minorities will also enter Parliament.
In Belgrade, the SNS would be represented with 48 of the municipality's total of 110 councilors, compared to 43 for the SPN. The opposition aspired to win the mayoralty of the capital and took its victory for granted, but analysts anticipated an uncertain result.
However, the opposition coalition assured today that, according to its calculations, its rival's advantage, which is about 21,000 votes, was achieved through manipulation. The SNP denounced that 40,000 fictitious voters were brought to Belgrade in an organized manner to support the SNS.
"This has drastically modified the electoral will of Belgraders. We demand the annulment of the municipal elections in Belgrade and the repetition of the vote for mayor," SPN said in a statement. The note asks, as a preliminary step, to "clean" the electoral roll.
The SPN called for a demonstration this Monday afternoon in front of the Municipal Mayor's Office and the headquarters of the Serbian Electoral Commission (RIK), and urged citizens to come to it to support their demand.
The SPN is a coalition of a dozen heterogeneous formations, center-left, green and center-right, and pro-European, united for the first time before these elections.
The elections were an attempt to appease the opposition, increased by large anti-government demonstrations in protest of two massacres last May, caused by two shooters, with 19 dead, 10 of them in a school in Belgrade, which shocked the country.
The campaign for these elections revolved around Vucic, who is neither formally the leader of the SNS nor did he run for office at the polls, and who last year won the presidential election for a second term. His party's list was presented in the elections under the name 'Aleksandar Vucic-Serbia must not stop'.
