Since December 19, Serbs have demonstrated every evening to demand the annulment of the results of the December 17 parliamentary and local elections. A vote that, according to international observers, was marked by “irregularities”. Russia accuses the West of wanting to destabilize the country, which is allied with Serbia.
Their mobilization does not slow down. In Serbia, thousands of demonstrators continue to gather daily in front of the electoral commission after the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) won the parliamentary elections on December 17 with 46.72% of the vote compared to 23% for the opposition coalition “Serbia Against Violence”.
“If nothing changes, the blockades will extend to the entire country from Wednesday,” announced the student collective of the Borba organization “The Struggle”.
These elections were “rigged,” according to opposition leader Marinika Tepic, who began a hunger strike on December 25 along with six other parliamentarians to demand their cancellation.
International observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the European Parliament denounced a series of “irregularities,” “vote buying” and “ballot stuffing.” President Aleksandar Vucic's party would also have benefited from preferential treatment in the media, which is under the control of Serbian power.
Aleksandar Vucic rejects these allegations. However, the public prosecutor's office requested an investigation on December 23.
Russia, for its part, accuses the West of provoking these “unrest” and “destabilizing” Serbia, the only country in Europe that refuses to impose sanctions on Russia after the war in Ukraine.
Fake addresses in Belgrade
In particular, the opposition believes that its victory in the Serbian capital was “stolen”. The irregularities that overshadowed the vote primarily affected Belgrade.
“The (local) elections in Belgrade, in contrast to the parliamentary elections, show that the opposition party “Serbia Against Violence” received around 35% of the vote, compared to 39% for the president's party. A small difference that could have been a lot.” “It would be more important (in the opposition's favor) if there had been no fraud. And especially if Bosnian Serbs had not been brought to Belgrade from neighboring Bosnia to vote,” said Pierre Mirel, former European Commission Balkans director and adviser to the Grande Europe Center of the Jacques Delors Institute on French culture.
Serbs abroad have the right to vote in parliamentary elections, but not in local elections. This also applies to Bosnian Serbs with dual nationality.
“Bosnian Serbs received IDs and false addresses in Belgrade. There are reports of more than 20,000 people being bussed and paid to vote for President Vucic's ruling party,” explains Laurent Rouy, France 24 correspondent in Belgrade. For its part, the opposition coalition estimates this number at “more than 40,000 people”.
04:13 Laurent Rouy, France 24 correspondent in Belgrade © France 24
It is not the first time that the Serbian opposition has denounced electoral irregularities. “Since Aleksandar Vučić has been in power, that is, for 11 years, irregularities have been detected in every election,” explains Laurent Rouy. “What is new is that the international community has reacted. She was, and this is a surprise, very strict in her characterization of the extent of the fraud.”
Germany called the alleged fraud “unacceptable” for a country hoping to join the European Union. Serbia has been an official candidate since 2014. But the country is moving further and further away from Brussels.
A Serbian Maidan “led by the American CIA and foreign services”
The Banjska affair, named after this town in northern Kosovo where a commando of several hundred heavily armed Serbs stormed the village last September, killing four people, has sparked renewed concern in the West.
Also read: How the attack on a village in Kosovo reignited tensions with the Serbian enemy
“Since these armed incidents, Aleksandar Vucic would no longer be seen as a solution to the Kosovo problem, but as part of the problem,” analyzes Laurent Rouy. “Which could explain the evolution of the international community’s position.”
Brussels manages to maintain dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo, its former Albanian-majority province. But Belgrade, with the support of Moscow, still refuses to recognize Pristina's independence, which was proclaimed in 2008.
This Russian support for Serbia partly explains the double game of President Vucic, who wants to both integrate into the European Union and maintain close ties with Russia.
Aleksandar Vucic also received Moscow's ambassador to Belgrade, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, on Monday. According to the latter, he told him that “the opposition began with demonstrations that were encouraged and supported from outside.” “All dissatisfaction and attempts to destabilize Vucic's power are, first of all, connected with his firm will not to join the anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the West,” the Russian ambassador assured.
The President and Prime Minister Ana Brnabic see these demonstrations as a “Serbian Maidan”. They compare the protest to the pro-European revolution that led to the dismissal of pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. Ana Brnabic even thanked the Russian secret services for providing information about the opposition’s “activities.” Pro-government tabloids claimed in their December 25 editions that this “Serbian Maidan” was “led by the American CIA and foreign services.”
The opposition denies these allegations. “There is no evidence that Western countries are organizing protests and these claims are completely unfounded,” says Predrag Petrović, head of a Belgrade-based NGO, the Center for the Study of Security Policy, on the airwaves of Radio Free Europe. He believes such statements represent an attempt to “criminalize and delegitimize” the opposition.
With AFP