The Balkans Today
Serbia Elections 2016
Stay tuned for all the latest developments, election results and reactions as Serbia goes to the polls to elect a new government
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BIRN reporters in Kosovo said a lot of people already voted in the early hours of Sunday. Ballots are both in Serbian and Albanian, but the polling stations are with visible Serbian state symbols.According to the OSCE, which is in charge of the elections in once Serbian southern province that declared independence in 2008, all voting centers have been open and the voting goes well.Some 100 000 people in Kosovo have a right to vote in Serbian elections.
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Irregularities were reported in the southern Serbian town of Vranje when a man tried to vote using an old ballot paper that was already filled out in advance.According to the state electoral commission, the voting at the polling station in Vranje was stopped and voters will have to cast their ballots on a future date.A bomb scare also temporarily suspended voting in the Belgrade municipality of Vozdovac. The police determined that it was a false alarm, so voting was allowed to continue, election observers said.
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Besim Hoti, the regional vice-director of Kosovo police for North Mitrovica, where people are also voting in the Serbian elections, said there have been no incidents at polling stations so far."We have been in position since the morning and so far everything has been going smoothly," said Hoti.The OSCE, which is running the voting process in Kosovo, has said that 7.4 per cent of voters cast their ballots by 10am.According to the OSCE, polling stations opened at 7am and will closed at 7am, after which it will collect the ballot boxes and transport them to the Serbian towns of Raska and Vranje, where the Serbian election committee will process the votes.
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Serbian Prime Minister and leader of Serbian Progressive Party Aleksandar Vucic voted this morning, together with his daughter. Check his profile on our special focus page. Photo:BETA
Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic also voted this morning. Ahead of Sunday polls he supported Serbian Progressive Party. Photo: BETA -
According to the state electoral commission, Sunday’s elections are being monitored by 1,687 local observers and 196 foreign monitors.Among them is an 18-member delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), alongside observers from the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).A member of the Venice Commission – the Council of Europe's group of independent legal experts – is giving them legal support.The PACE/ODIHR monitoring mission will present its preliminary findings on Monday.Among the international monitors is also Danish organisation SILBA which works to support the democratic development in Eastern and Central Europe.
“In general the election looks fair, but we have also observed a few irregularities. For example we have observed some delays in the opening of the polls,” SILBA said in a statement.
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According to the election monitoring group CRTA, a preliminary analysis shows that the turnout was 39.6 per cent by 4 pm.Bojan Klacar, the executive director of the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy, estimated are that the overall turnout at polls close will be more than 55 per cent.According to Klacar, it will definitely be bigger than the last elections in 2014, when the turnout was 53 per cent.“We believe we will have preliminary results at around 10pm,” Klacar told Belgrade-based TV B92.
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Serbian Radical Party leader and Hague Tribunal war crimes defendant Vojislav Seselj told media after voting that he would consider going into coalition with his former ally, current Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, if the premier abandons EU integration and decides to “integrate with Russia”.
“Then we can cooperate, we can support him,” said Seselj, whose nationalist party has been tipped for a return to parliament after several years in the political wilderness.by marija.ristic via YouTube 4/24/2016 3:48:31 PM -
Serbian police, with the approval of the Basic Public Prosecutor in the central city of Jagodina, have put a member of the election commission in the nearby village of Ribnik in detention for 48 hours, after he allegedly broke two ballot boxes at a polling station. -
The turnout at 6pm was 47.68 per cent, the Serbian state electoral commission said. In central Serbia, the turnout at 6pm was 47.44 per cent, in the northern province of Vojvodina 48.34 per cent, while in the capital Belgrade, 47.14 of the voters had cast their ballots.
Polling stations across Serbia will close at 8pm and the first preliminary results will be announced immediately after.
So far, the voting will only be repeated at two polling stations – one in the southern city of Vranje, the other in Jagodina in central Serbia.
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Marko Djuric, Serbian Progressive Party official, said he expects a smooth victory for his party.“I am convinced citizens of Serbia made the right decision and I want to congratulate them for the fair and democratic elections,” Djuric told Belgrade-based broadcaster TV Pink.
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Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday that his ruling Progressive Party will seek insight into all election materials from the national Electoral Commission, RIK.Vucic's announcement comes a day afterrepresentatives of several of the country's opposition parties said the opposition will form a joint legal team to scrutinise all the election material, claiming that the elections were marred by numerous irregularities.
According to the national Electorate Committee, RIK, the elections were generally free and fair.
Based on 97.46 per cent of the votes counted, it said the coalition "Aleksandar Vucic - Serbia wins" won 48 per cent of the votes, easily coming first.
Six other lists passed the 5-per-cent threshold needed to enter parliament.
The Serbian Socialist Party, SPS, came second with won 11 per cent of the votes, the Serbian Radical Party, SRS, came third with 8 per cent, the Democratic Party, DS, came fourth with 6 per cent, and the movement “Enough is enough” came fifth with 5.9 per cent.
The coalition grouped around former Serbian president Boris Tadic also won 5 per cent of the votes, as did the right-wing coalition between Dveri and the Democratic Party of Serbia, DSS.
Photo: Beta -
The pro-Russian coalition between the Democratic Party of Serbia, DSS and Dveri accused Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and his Progressive Party, SNS, of pressuring the national Electorate Commission, RIK, to declare that their coalition will not join the new parliament, and announced street riots if this outcome occurs.Bosko Obradovic, president of Dveri, told BIRN that Vucic will try to use RIK’s decision to hold re-votes in 164 polling stations across the country in order to manipulate the ballots to exclude DSS and Dveri out of the parliament.“If that happens, we will definitely organise street protests,” Obradovic told BIRN.Based on 97.46 per cent of the votes counted, the DSS-Dveri coalition will enter parliament with 5 per cent of votes.RIK so far annulled votes at seven polling stations on Wednesday, and is yet to confirm the number of irregularities recorded.RIK is supposed to announce the final results of the election on Thursday.
Bosko Obradovic with coalition partner from DSS, Sanda Raskovic Ivic | Photo: Facebook
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