Right-wing nationalist ruling party SNS has won parliamentary elections in Serbia
The right-wing nationalist ruling party SNS of President Aleksandar Vucic has won the parliamentary elections in Serbia after all votes have been counted. As the national election commission RIK announced on its website on Wednesday, Vucic's party received 46.75 percent of the vote, while the loose opposition alliance "Serbia Against Violence" achieved 23.66 percent.
Since the election on December 17, there have been accusations of electoral fraud from the opposition and violent protests against the government. The protests reached their peak on December 24, when demonstrators in the Serbian capital Belgrade attempted to storm the city hall.
An international observer mission also reported a number of "irregularities" after the election, including cases of violence, vote buying and the stuffing of ballot boxes with forged ballot papers. The Federal Foreign Office in Berlin declared that the violations were "unacceptable for a country with EU candidate status".
President Vucic rejected an international investigation into the elections on Tuesday. The elections in Serbia were "a matter for (Serbian) state institutions", he declared.
The counting of the votes took so long because the election had to be repeated in around 30 locations where no result could be determined. As the opposition boycotted the election reruns, the ruling party was able to make large gains, achieving 85% of the vote in one district.
It is not yet clear how many seats Vucic's party, which has governed the country since 2012, will have in parliament in Belgrade. On December 30, the Serbian president had already announced that his party had won 129 or even 130 of the 250 seats in parliament.
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Source: www.ntv.de
