BELGRADE, April 3 – Serbs will go to the polls on Sunday in presidential and parliamentary elections pitting incumbent President Aleksandar Vucic and his Progressive Party (SNS) against an opposition pledged to fight corruption and to improve environmental protection.
Vucic is running for a second five-year term on promises of peace and stability at a time of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has pressured Serbia from the West to balance its traditional ties with Moscow and aspirations to join the European Union decide (EU).
Polling stations for Serbia’s estimated 6.5 million voters opened at 0500 GMT and close at 1800 GMT.
Polls show Vucic, a conservative, on track to win in the first round, ahead of Zdravko Ponos, a retired army general who is the pro-European and centrist Alliance candidate for victory.
“I expect Vucic to win. He has proven that he is capable of leading the country,” Zorica Jovanovic, a pensioner, told Reuters after the vote was cast. “Without him, we wouldn’t have had enough COVID-19 vaccines.”
A poll by pollster Factor Plus, published in daily Blic on Wednesday, showed SNS won with 53.6% of the vote. The Alliance for Victory came second with 13.7% and Vucic’s coalition partners, the Socialists, came third with 10.2%. A grouping of environmentalists would win 4.7% of the vote, which is above the 3% threshold needed to win seats in Parliament, the poll found.
The opposition largely boycotted a general election in 2020, allowing the SNS and its allies to secure 188 seats in the 250-seat parliament.
“There is always hope that elections will bring change,” said Ferik, who declined to give his last name, after the early morning vote.
SHADOW OF WAR
Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine had a major impact on electoral campaigning in Serbia, which is still recovering from the Balkan wars and isolation of the 1990s.
Serbia is almost entirely dependent on Russian gas, while its army has ties to the Russian military.
The Kremlin also supports Belgrade’s resistance to independence in Kosovo, the predominantly Albanian former southern province of Serbia.
Although Serbia supported two United Nations resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it refused to impose sanctions on Moscow.
Bojan Klacar, head of the opinion research institute CeSID, said the war had forced a shift away from the main campaign issues such as corruption, the environment and the rule of law.
“Voters are now looking for answers to their concerns about economic stability, living standards and political stability,” Klacar told Reuters earlier this week.
Vucic, a veteran politician who served as information minister under former strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 1998, had morphed from a nationalist incendiary into a supporter of EU membership, but also of military neutrality and relations with Russia and China.
Ponos has accused Vucic of using the war in Ukraine in his campaign to try to capitalize on people’s fears.
Opposition and legal guardians also accuse Vucic and his allies of an autocratic style of rule, corruption, nepotism, control of the media, attacks on political opponents and links to organized crime. Vucic and his allies have repeatedly denied this.
Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic; Edited by Alex Richardson and Jacqueline Wong