Serbia’s elections took place under “unjust conditions”, international observers said on Monday, one day after Aleksandar Vučić’s populist ruling party declared victory.
The country held a snap parliamentary election, along with local elections, on Sunday. Preliminary results showed Vučić’s Serbian Progressive party (SNS) won about 46%, while the opposition coalition Serbia Against Violence took 23%.
But observers and opposition politicians have raised concerns about the election process.
In a statement, an international election observation mission said the elections were “technically well-administered”, but “dominated by the decisive involvement of the president which together with the ruling party’s systemic advantages created unjust conditions”.
The mission, which includes representatives from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the European parliament and Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, also concluded that the campaign “was marred by harsh rhetoric, bias in the media, pressure on public sector employees and misuse of public resources”.
The international observers pointed to a range of problems found in polling places. “Instances of serious irregularities, including vote-buying and ballot-box stuffing, were observed. Measures for ensuring vote secrecy were insufficient,” they said.
Serbia’s opposition has questioned the legitimacy of the Belgrade local election. Projections showed SNS won about 39% in Belgrade and Serbia Against Violence 34%.
“The campaign was unfair in all aspects from the beginning till the election day,” said Vladimir Obradović, Serbia Against Violence’s candidate for Belgrade mayor.
“Pressure on voters, buying votes, voters from other areas and even countries are only some of the irregularities that were observed and reported by independent monitoring missions,” he said.
“Results of the elections in Belgrade do not represent the free will of the Belgrade citizens, and we cannot accept them. We demand new elections with fair conditions for all parties involved,” he added.
An opposition protest is expected in the capital this evening.
The independent Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA) said the election in the capital did not reflect Belgrade residents’ preferences, citing “irregularities that directly compromised election results” at 9% of the city’s polling stations.
“Considering the scope and diversity of electoral abuses in Belgrade,” the organisation said, “we conclude that the results of the Belgrade elections do not reflect the freely expressed will of voters living in Belgrade”.
Vučić and his party have denied the allegations. The president’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Prof Florian Bieber, director of the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz, Austria, said one takeaway from Sunday’s elections was that irregularities appeared to be more widespread than in previous races.
“There’s been manipulation in the past but this seems to be more serious,” he said. Another key point, he noted, was the weakening of far-right opposition parties in this election.
And while noting that the results suggested there was “a genuine weakness in Belgrade” for the ruling party, Bieber also said Vučić’s party performed well nationally.
“I think nobody doubted that they would win the elections,” he said. “But nobody expected that they would improve on the result of last year by such a margin.”
