The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, said on March 2 that he has asked the electoral list associated with the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) to participate in new elections in Belgrade.
“I know you have the majority; however, it is better to lose than to repeat the situation of 2008 when the Democratic Party and the Socialists committed electoral theft,” Vučić said in a press conference at the Serbian Presidency.
He urged the government to immediately implement the recommendations made by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) in the report published on last December’s elections in Serbia.
On February 28, ODIHR published the final report on the December 17 elections.
It stated that the extraordinary elections in Serbia “were dominated by the decisive participation of the president, who, together with the systematic advantage of the ruling party, created unfair conditions for participants”.
Among other things, it was mentioned that “fundamental freedoms were generally respected during the campaign, but they were undermined by harsh rhetoric, media prejudice, pressure on public sector workers, and abuse of public resources”.
In addition to the ODIHR report, both domestic and foreign observers in Serbia have cited irregularities in the electoral process.
Earlier, the European Parliament also adopted a resolution calling for an international investigation into suspicions of irregularities in the elections, as well as the suspension of European funds if it is proven that the authorities were directly involved in electoral fraud.
In the resolution, the European Parliament called in particular for an investigation into the elections for the city of Belgrade, as well as suspicions of organized voter transfers at the local level.
On December 17, Serbia held parliamentary, local, and regional elections.
The constitutive session for the Belgrade City Assembly, which was scheduled for March 1, was postponed for the second time to March 3 due to lack of quorum.
Members of the SNS and the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) did not participate in the session.
