Serbia's Vucic claims victory but opposition rejects election results

Almost all the votes have been counted after Serbia's snap parliamentary and local elections, and the results say that the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) won a landslide victory. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, and the poll count, say his party won an absolute majority in the parliament, allowing them to continue the rule of the country.

Just two and a half hours after the elections finished, celebrations started at the SNS headquarters. As the results started coming in, they realized that after 11 years in power, they would be able to stay at the helm for another four.

For these elections, Vucic's party created an alliance called 'Serbia Must Not Stop', which is essentially led by the SNS, and they have won more than the required 126 parliament seats. 

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Addressing supporters and journalists, Vucic hailed his party's apparent victory: "The 'Serbia Must Not Stop' alliance will certainly have more than 127 mandates. We don't know whether it will be 128, 129, or 130. The result of this election is that this one alliance, Serbia Must Not Stop, will have an absolute majority."

At the same time, the leaders of the main opposition coalition, Serbia Against Violence, rejected the election results. Miroslav Aleksic, one of the opposition leaders, said that the campaign was unfair and the results were fraudulent.

"We'll fight using all available democratic means against the theft of votes that happened today in Belgrade and across the Republic of Serbia, which was orchestrated in the preceding days," he said.

First thing on Monday morning, his party called on supporters to gather in front of the state election commission to protest against the alleged election fraud.

The official results say that the SNS-led alliance got around 46 percent of the votes, while the opposition, Serbia Against Violence, got around 23 percent. Although the difference between the two is significant, it does also show a significant split among the voters, with those in urban areas being more pro-opposition. 

That is why the opposition achieved far better results in capital Belgrade than nationwide, yet the official figures say that they failed to gain more votes than the ruling SNS.

The opposition is now calling on authorities to annul the Belgrade elections, as they point to a number of irregularities. The authorities have rejected those accusations.

And as evening approaches, Belgrade is preparing for another string of possibly lengthy protests.

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