Serbia’s opposition is doubling down on its campaign to challenge the legitimacy of last month’s elections, after full results gave the ruling party a large win in a parliamentary vote.
Data released by the election commission on Wednesday showed President Aleksandar Vučić’s Serbian Progressive party (SNS) won 46.75% of the vote, while a pro-European opposition coalition, Serbia Against Violence, got 23.66%.
Serbia held the snap election, along with local elections, on 17 December, but government critics said the vote was fraudulent – in particular in Belgrade, where opposition politicians argue they would have won the city assembly election in a fair race.
The election commission’s numbers “proved that captured institutions in our country are being abused [with the aim of] whitewashing of the electoral fraud and major stomping on the will of our people”, said Borko Stefanović, the deputy president of the Party of Freedom and Justice, part of the Serbia Against Violence coalition.
Concerns about how the elections were conducted prompted several politicians to go on hunger strikes and fuelled tense protests in late December, with at least 38 people detained. An international observation mission also concluded that Serbia’s elections took place under “unjust conditions”.
But opposition politicians say they are not giving up and insist the vote – especially in the capital – must be re-run. “Since our coalition has won in Belgrade, Vučić’s regime is now trying to cover it and to use the silence of our western partners,” said Stefanović. “This shall not pass.”
Opposition groups and domestic observers claimed a significant number of people who live outside the capital arrived to vote in the city. The ruling SNS won 49 seats in the 110-seat city assembly, while Serbia Against Violence took 43 seats, according to the city’s electoral commission.
But observers at the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability watchdog said they had “identified instances of organised transportation of voters, supervised voting, [and] possible identity manipulation of voters in 71 polling stations, or 14% of polling stations in Belgrade”.
The opposition says people should be given another chance to vote. “We and the people are asking that the 17 December elections be annulled and to have new elections, especially in Belgrade, where the rigging process was most evident and proven,” said Stefanović.
“We will continue with peaceful protests,” he added, saying the opposition expected the EU “to support their own and OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe] recommendations for free and fair elections in Serbia”.
Vladimir Obradović, the opposition’s candidate for Belgrade mayor, said the protests would continue on a weekly basis and the opposition would continue to try to lever pressure through “diplomatic efforts”.
He emphasised that Serbia needed the international community to weigh in.
“We don’t have the institutions that work, and that may be the major problem, because if you give all the evidence and everything to the court, and there is no reaction from that side – that’s why we need some sort of international monitoring and mediation to help.”
Vučić has rejected allegations of election fraud, called demonstrators “thugs” and claimed that the west was encouraging the protests. Serbia’s government thanked Russia for tipping it off in advance of protests, and the president pointedly discussed the demonstrations in a meeting with the Russian ambassador in Belgrade.
Vučić’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Dobrica Veselinović, a member of the Green-Left Front, part of the Serbia Against Violence coalition, said the government’s critics did well, given the circumstances. “In a very unequal, dirty and difficult campaign, [the] opposition still managed to achieve a decisive and good result,” he said.
“We must bear in mind that if there was not so much theft and selective electoral engineering from the side of government, which the international observation mission and civil society organisations talked about – in Belgrade [the] opposition would have won,” he added.
“Now, with the help of citizens which are protesting in Serbia on the streets and partners from Europe, we have to fight for the annulment of these elections.”
