BELGRADE: Demonstrators set up roadblocks in the Serbian capital Belgrade Monday, to protest what they say was electoral fraud in Serbia’s recent parliamentary and local elections.
President Aleksandar Vucic denounced violence in the capital the previous evening, when opposition demonstrators had tried to storm Belgrade city hall and clashed with police.
Vucic said there was evidence the violence had been planned in advance.
Moscow on Monday accused the West of interfering, suggesting that foreign actors were trying to stir up the unrest.
Early Monday, Vucic met the Russian ambassador in Belgrade Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko and briefed him on the Sunday’s incidents.
Vucic is walking a difficult line balancing between East and West, vowing to keep Serbia on a course for European Union membership while also remaining friendly with Russia and courting Beijing and Washington.
On Monday, a few hundred demonstrators blocked the street in central Belgrade where the public administration and local self-government ministry is located. Other roadblocks quickly followed. The protesters, mainly students organised under the “Borba” (Fight) movement, were supporting the opposition claims of fraud that started on December 18th, a day after the elections.
They are calling for a revision of the voter roll, claiming that it was the source of the alleged electoral fraud.
But a statement from the ministry insisted the registry was “one of the most up-to-date records”.
“I am born 2002, and I thought that there would be no need, as my parents did, to fight for democracy through the street,” 21-year-old politics student Emilija Milenkovic told AFP at one protest Monday.
“But I have to,” she added. She was wearing the badge of “Otpor”, the students’ movement that in the past organised protests against former president Slobodan Milosevic. A day after the elections, Vucic’s party said it had won more than half of parliament’s 250 seats.
The main opposition coalition “Serbia against violence” denounced what it said was electoral fraud, alleging that voters from neighbouring Bosnia had been allowed to cast ballots illegally in the capital.
International observers — including representatives from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) — reported “irregularities”, including “vote buying” and “ballot box stuffing”. Several Western countries also expressed concern. Germany, for one, labelled the reported allegations “unacceptable” for a country hoping to join the European Union, while a statement from Brussels said Serbia’s “electoral process requires tangible improvement and further reform”.
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