the opposition calls for a boycott, on the eve of a new vote

Since the December 17 election won by the nationalist right, protest actions have increased. The left-wing opposition continues to denounce massive fraud and does not intend to participate in the new vote organized on Saturday.

Several dozen students gathered on Friday, December 29, in the center of Belgrade. They blocked an intersection to contest the results of the legislative elections. This is an example of the protest actions which have multiplied since December 17, and the victory of the party of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, with 46% of the votes according to the official results. There will therefore be a new vote tomorrow in 30 of Serbia’s 8,000 polling stations. The opposition will, however, boycott this new vote.

For the opposition, this vote will not allow it to change the results of the initial vote, which it would simply like to see annulled. Serbia Against Violence, the main opposition coalition, came second. But “the results were rigged”, she says. The opposition claims that Serbian voters from neighboring Bosnia were allowed to vote illegally in Belgrade.

The SNS, the party which represents the nationalist right in power, only obtained a 4-point lead in the Serbian capital, leading the opposition to say that victory was stolen from it in Belgrade. Videos have been published showing buses bringing thousands of Serbian nationals to vote. You should know that Serbs abroad have the right to vote in legislative elections, unlike municipal elections.

Serbia candidate for entry into the EU

The opposition has noted multiple frauds, confirmed by international observers. There was vote buying and ballot stuffing which the Serbian president, the very nationalist Aleksandar Vucic, refutes. He accuses the opposition of wanting to seize power by force. The Serbian president can count on the unwavering support of his Russian ally. “It is obvious that the West is seeking to destabilize the situation in Serbia”declared the spokesperson for Russian diplomacy, who compared the opposition demonstrations to those of Maidan in kyiv in 2014. Demonstrations which resulted in the coming to power of pro-Westerners in Ukraine.

Serbia is a candidate for entry into the European Union, without however complying with the requirements and reforms required by the Union, which fuels doubts about Serbia’s European orientation. Aleksandar Vucic plays two roles. He refused, for example, to align with European sanctions against Russia since the invasion of Ukraine. Then there is the Kosovo issue. The Serbian president, who has boundless admiration for the former dictator Slobodan Milosevic, has never accepted the independence of Kosovo proclaimed in 2008. A territory that he would very much like to see attached again to Serbia, which reminds us very bad memories in the context of the war in Ukraine…