Protesters challenging the results of Serbia's December 17 parliamentary election attacked Belgrade City Hall on Sunday, December 24, after international observers denounced “irregularities.”
Some already see this as a Serbian “Maidan”. On Sunday evening, December 24th, a crowd of opponents of President Aleksandar Vucic, armed with Serbian and some European flags, presented themselves in front of Belgrade City Hall to challenge the results of the December 17th parliamentary elections. They saw that the presidential party SNS (Nationalist Right) won with 46.72% of the vote. Amid loud whistles in the crowded square and slogans comparing Vucic to Putin, some protesters threw stones, sticks and eggs at the building and smashed windows. They even tried to force their way in before being pushed back by police, who used pepper spray to clear the place around 10 p.m.
“There is no revolution underway,” the Serbian president immediately replied on the pro-government channel Pink TV. He specified that two police officers were “seriously injured” when he attempted to “take control of state institutions by force,” adding that he had “solid evidence” that “everything was prepared in advance.” be. Understand: from abroad.
“Imported” power advocates?
Not a revolution yet, but still a political crisis that has been growing for a week. The December 17 vote drew widespread criticism after a team of international observers – including representatives from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) – denounced a series of “irregularities”, including “vote buying” and “ballot stuffing”. Critics in the country with hundreds of people who demonstrated daily in front of the electoral commission, but also internationally. Germany called the alleged fraud “unacceptable” for a country seeking to join the European Union. The United States called on Belgrade to address election observers' “concerns” and the EU said that “Serbia's electoral process requires tangible improvements and further reforms.”
This Monday, demonstrators were already back on the streets to block a small artery in the center of the capital, where the headquarters of the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government is located. Especially students from the “Borba” (Struggle) organization, who are demanding a revision of the electoral list, which they believe is the cause of electoral fraud.
Serbian opposition leader Marinika Tepic, along with six other parliamentarians, went on a hunger strike to “draw attention to this alleged fraud in Serbia and abroad” and to demand new elections. She topped the list of a united opposition movement that emerged from demonstrations against Serbia's endemic violence, which Aleksandar Vucic has been accused of trivializing. According to her party, the 49-year-old former journalist “risked” her health by setting up a makeshift bed on the parliamentary bench in Belgrade and receiving daily infusions. “I try not to think about death. “I don’t see it as a sacrifice, but as a struggle and a way to keep myself alive,” she told the press. I have no intention of giving up until these rigged elections are overturned, they admit there was voter fraud and the will of the people is upheld. » She accuses the president of “importing” votes beyond Serbian borders during the election, after international observers also mentioned information about “voters living abroad who were bused by the ruling party to Belgrade to cast their votes.”
Russia supports Vucic
For now, Aleksandar Vucic refuses to give anything to the critics. “I would like to ask everyone who is on hunger strike not to do so. You can organize demonstrations every day, I am used to demonstrations,” he said on Sunday before the demonstration in Belgrade. He continues to threaten those who do so half-heartedly, warning that the authorities are “capable” of arresting and convicting those responsible for incidents like those on Sunday night. “No one has the right to destroy our home, destroy the property of our country and our citizens, or seriously injure our police officers,” he reiterated on Pink TV.
In the background of this political crisis is the very Russophile profile of the Serbian head of state. While the war in Ukraine has brought the countries on the EU's periphery closer to Brussels, Serbia has taken the opposite path. Belgrade, which has long flirted with Moscow and Beijing, does not apply any of the European sanctions against Russia. “All the dissatisfaction and attempts to destabilize Vucic's power are, first of all, linked to his firm will not to join the anti-Russian sanctions,” assured the Russian ambassador in Belgrade, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, after receiving this Monday from Aleksandar Vucic became. In a “confidential conversation,” the Serbian president assured him that “the opposition has encouraged and supported the protests from outside.”
Shortly before, the Kremlin had also commented on the demonstration on Sunday evening. “It is obvious that the collective West is trying to destabilize the situation in the country,” said Russian diplomatic spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, quoted by state agency RIA Novosti. She even goes so far as to compare the recent demonstrations in Serbia with those at the Maidan in Kiev in 2014, which led to pro-Westerners coming to power in Ukraine. The comparison is also made by numerous pro-European accounts on social networks, evidence of the special resonance that this beginning of a political crisis had in the context of the Ukraine conflict.
Updated Monday, December 15, at 2:45 p.m.with the closure of a street in the center of Belgrade.
Updated at 4:20 p.m.in the words of the Russian ambassador in Belgrade.