Politics

Students take over downtown Belgrade to denounce election fraud and demand recount

Belgrade, Dec 29 (EFE). – In a new protest against the alleged fraud in the December 17 elections, Serbian students and activists on Friday blocked one of Belgrade’s main arteries with tents to demand a re-run of the vote, despite the refusal of the competent institutions.

The young people plan to maintain the blockade until noon on Saturday, when they will join a new demonstration in support of the opposition’s demand for the annulment of the election results.

The demonstrators have set up a real camp and blocked an intersection near the Ministry of Public Administration, which they are demanding to review the electoral roll.

The protests include debates with experts, musical performances and film screenings.

The young demonstrators demand to check whether the voters’ list contains “fictitious voters” who, they claim, were added to the census to vote for the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) of Serbian populist President Aleksandar Vucic.

They assure that they will not stop these demonstrations until their demands are met, and they also warn the opposition not to take over the seats they have won, so as not to give legitimacy to the electoral process, whose transparency has also been questioned by the European Union.

However, the Central Election Commission (RIK) said on Friday that it was not competent to decide on a possible annulment of the election results, which is why it rejected the request of the main opposition coalition “Serbia Against Violence” (SPN), public television RTS reported.

The electoral commission in Belgrade also declared itself incompetent, while the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the opposition as “unfounded”.

The Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA) – a Serbian NGO – asserted that state institutions have rejected all demands by activists and opponents to investigate irregularities reported during the election process.

“We have met a wall of silence on the part of the institutions. We have exhausted all possibilities to solve this problem within the state institutions,” said Pavle Dimitrijevic, a member of the CRTA, as quoted by the Danas newspaper on Friday..

Demonstrations denouncing the alleged fraud have been taking place since the day of the elections, which were called by the SPN. Three MPs from this party have also been on hunger strike for days in protest.

On Dec. 17, Serbia held elections for the national parliament, the Vojvodina regional assembly, and municipal elections in 65 cities, including Belgrade.

The SNP expected to win in the capital, but narrowly lost to the SNS, which won 47% of the vote nationally, almost double the opposition coalition’s support.

Vucic, who has been in power for more than a decade, has denied allegations of fraud and accused the opposition of trying to destabilize the country.

International election observers noted pressure on voters, including vote buying, abuse of public resources, and a lack of separation between certain official positions and campaign activities.

Some twenty Serbian NGOs also denounced that the will of the citizens was not respected in the elections.EFE sn/mcd

Related Articles

Back to top button