The biggest opponent of Vučić's party will probably be the pro-Western coalition “Serbia Against Violence”. Marko Milošević, grandson of former president Slobodan Milošević, accused of war crimes, is also on the Socialists' list of candidates.
Parliamentary and local elections began in Serbia on Sunday. A new parliament is elected for the fifth time in eleven years. The Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), which has been in power since 2012, is the clear favorite. According to polls, the party, led by President Aleksandar Vučić until May, is expected to receive around 40 percent of the vote. The biggest opponent of Vučić's party will probably be the pro-Western coalition “Serbia Against Violence”.
In the polls, she received just over a quarter of the votes. However, the attempt to form an electoral coalition between several smaller nationalist forces failed, which should have benefited the SNS. Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić's Socialists will probably receive ten percent. Marko Milošević, grandson of former president Slobodan Milošević, accused of war crimes, is also on the Socialists' list of candidates. In the run-up to the elections, non-governmental organizations discovered numerous irregularities. Dražen Pavlica, a media expert at the NGO BIRODI, said that most of the media, including all national television channels, were under the control of the ruling parties.
A total of around 6.5 million citizens have the right to vote. Voting locations will remain open until 8pm. A record number of 5,500 observers will follow the vote. International observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) are also present, including Austrian parliamentarians Reinhold Lopatka (ÖVP) and Stefan Schennach (SPÖ) in leadership positions. The first election results are expected on Monday night.
Green Party foreign policy spokeswoman Ewa Ernst-Dziedzic, also an OSCE election observer, shared her first impressions on Sunday morning: “Some members of the electoral commission are recognizable as government representatives, and many people did not receive an invitation to vote,” she said. In some polling stations there are “intimidating” members of the electoral commission who “look over people’s shoulders”; They wore black caps and black hoodies and looked like “bouncers at a nightclub.” It was also “surprising” that “voters’ names were often read aloud” and “there are always complaints about this,” Ernst-Dziedzic said. One man angrily reported that “pressure” had been put on him in front of the polling station. (APA)