Serbs still have a few hours to vote on Sunday to elect their Parliament, less than 18 months after the last legislative elections, 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. and will close at 8:00 p.m. local time (2:00 p.m. Quebec time).
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 at the national level, with 40% to 45% of the votes.
At 4 p.m., the participation rate stood at 42%, according to the electoral commission – as in 2022. A little more than 6.5 million Serbs are expected to vote on Sunday.
In the south of the country, hundreds of Kosovo Serbs crossed the border to come and vote, Pristina and Belgrade having been unable to find an agreement so that they could do so in their towns and villages.
“I expect a good turnout” and “a landslide victory” declared Mr. Vucic as he went to vote on Sunday morning in the capital – where the opposition hopes to come out on top. More than sixty cities – including Belgrade – also organize municipal elections.
To hope to prevail against the SNS, a new coalition was formed, 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,” Dobrica said at a polling station in the capital 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 hard hit 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.
Irregularities
The campaign was marked by the presidential camp’s control over the media – according to several studies, the president alone occupied 40% of the air time.
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 Slobodan Milosevic’s grandson, Marko, a member of his party, the SPS (Serbian Socialist Party), during the campaign.
The opposition also denounced irregularities – claiming that busloads had arrived in Belgrade to vote for non-residents. Accusations that Prime Minister Ana Brnabic brushed aside in a post on X.
And a team of observers from the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA) claimed to have been attacked in the town of Odzaci (north-east), “after recording a case of electoral corruption, where dozens of ballot papers were taken to the offices of the political parties, located opposite the polling station.”