Hundreds protest against electoral ‘fraud’ in Serbia
Hundreds of people have taken to the streets in the Serbian capital of Belgrade to protest against alleged fraud and irregularities in the country's parliamentary elections.
The protest rally, which was held in front of the Electoral Commission in downtown Belgrade on Saturday, was organized by Serbia's left-wing and ultra-nationalist opposition parties.
Chanting “We want our votes” and “This is fraud”, the protesters demanded a nationwide recount of last weekend's election ballots, the resignation of the election commission or a re-run of the vote.
The protest came after the latest results showed a far-right coalition has been excluded from parliament after narrowly missing the five percent threshold needed for seats in final results.
With 99.45 percent of ballots counted, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party (SNA) has won nearly 50 percent of the vote, which will give it at least 138 seats in the 250-member parliament.
The far-right Democratic Party of Serbia and Dveri (DSS/Dveri), an ultra-nationalist alliance, has been excluded from the assembly after achieving the threshold in earlier results.
“We will not allow the authorities to steal our votes,” Bosko Obradovic, the head of the Dveri party, part of the Dveri-DSS coalition, told the crowd, urging Vucic to “acknowledge the election results.”
Both Vucic and opposition groups have disputed the fairness of the elections.
Vucic accused the opposition of pressuring the electoral commission in order to make it past the five percent vote threshold, while the opposition claimed having evidence of “huge irregularities and serious electoral fraud.”
The electoral commission has asked up to 16,500 voters at 15 polling stations to recast their ballots.
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