Serbian elections marred by president’s involvement, vote buying – observers
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Serbia’s snap elections have been marred by “unjust competition” by the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), the presence of President Aleksandar Vucic in the campaign, media bias and vote buying, an international monitoring mission said on Monday.
The populist SNS won 46.72% of the votes, according to state election commission preliminary results, based on the count from 96% of the polling stations.The centre-left opposition alliance Serbia Against Violence came second with 23.56% of the votes and the Socialist Party of Serbia third with 6.56%.”The decisive involvement of the President dominated the electoral process, and the use of his name by one of the candidate lists, together with bias in the media, contributed to an uneven playing field,” Reinhold Lopatka, the leader of the short-term OSCE observer mission, told a news conference.Vucic actively campaigned for his SNS party although he was not on the election list named after him – “Aleksandar Vucic-Serbia Must Not Stop”.Observers also said they have registered the misuse of public resources, a lack of separation between official functions and campaign activities, and intimidation and pressure on voters, including cases of vote buying.
The opposition SPN alliance has complained over what they described as major violations of election procedure, including voters migration, bribing and rigging of election results and demanded repetition of local votes for the Belgrade city parliament.
