Serbians intensified their protests following the country's weekend snap elections where Aleksandr Vucic won the presidency, claiming election fraud.
The situation comes as there were multiple reports of irregularities amid the election, said international observers on Monday. Vucic's opponents took to the streets to protest his victory, claiming that the vote was rigged.
Serbians Protest Over Supposed Election Fraud
Political tension across the Balkan country spiked over Sunday's parliamentary and local elections. In Belgrade, the capital, several thousand people gathered in the streets in front of the state election commission headquarters.
There, they chanted "thieves," as opposition leaders moved to lodge formal complaints against the vote, claiming fraud in the city election. In a statement, opposition politician Marinika Tepic said they have hundreds of complaints. She and many other opposition lawmakers plan to camp inside the building that is the seat of the state election commission.
One point was when protesters broke through a fence surrounding the building and one young woman even tried to storm the entrance. As per the Associated Press, protesters also threw eggs, tomatoes, and toilet paper rolls at the building.
Vucic's ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) won the parliamentary vote as confirmed by an early official count. However, in the capital's local election, an opposition group said that it was robbed and that they would not recognize the results. They plan to demand a rerun of the ballot in the city.
Vucic appeared on state RTS television on Monday evening, where he said that the "election was fair" and that he wanted to "tell the people not to worry." He added that peace, law, and order will prevail in the country.
A mission made up of representatives of international rights watchdogs said in a preliminary statement that the Serbian vote was "marred by harsh rhetoric, bias in the media, pressure on public sector employees, and misuse of public resources."
Aleksandr Vucic's Party Victory
It added that the SNS party gained an unfair advantage through these efforts, which led to it winning 46.72% of the votes in the Sunday snap elections. The center-left opposition alliance Serbia Against Violence came second with 23.56% of the votes and in third was the Socialist Party of Serbia with 6.56% of the votes, according to Reuters.
The leader of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) observer mission, Reinhold Lopatka said that the parliamentary elections, while they were technically well-administered and offered voters a choice of political alternatives, were dominated by the decisive involvement of the president.
Vucic actively campaigned for his SNS party although he was not on the list of candidates named after him. Observers also argued that there was a lack of separation between official functions and campaign activities.
A total of 18 parties and alliances competed for the support of the 6.5 million-strong electorate for 25- seats in parliament. The preliminary vote count suggests that Vucic's SNS party would win a slim majority of at least 127 deputies. This is enough to rule by itself, but it is expected to seek coalition partners to cement its dominance of parliament, said CNN.
