Despite the difficult relations between Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and his Western partners, Brussels is happy with his figure. As Ekaterina Entina, a professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics and head of the department of Black Sea-Mediterranean studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, noted in an interview with Izvestia on December 22, for this reason it can hardly be said that the West is interested in a total revision of the parliamentary elections held in Serbia.
“Despite the rather complicated relationship of Vučić himself with Brussels, Berlin and London, Brussels is generally satisfied with his figure as the leader of Serbia and, in fact, with the entire policy of the Serbian Progressive Party, which has been carried out over the past 10 years, and there are some serious reasons for that.” They are unlikely to organize a color revolution or put too much pressure on Vučić, even to the point of demanding that the results of the parliamentary elections be annulled,” Entina believes.
According to her, Western partners are simply not interested in this, since the resource that the openly pro-Western liberal opposition currently has is not sufficient to consolidate the Serbian nation around it. Relying on them as the main force can only “rock” the republic to a greater extent.
“Protest movements are generally characteristic of Serbia; they happen following the results of every election, sometimes very protracted. Despite the fact that today the opposition is actively using slogans from the 1990s, <...> it can hardly be said that any of the external or even internal actors today are interested in a total revision of the voting results, therefore It’s unlikely that anything will happen at the republican level. At the same time, the likelihood that the opposition, with the support of the West, will be able to achieve a re-vote in Belgrade is quite real,” the political scientist pointed out.
Entina emphasized that the existing foreign policy of the republic will be preserved under any leadership, as it is determined by historical reasons, economic ones, the enormous complexity of the Kosovo issue and the position of Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina – these factors influence absolutely all political forces that were in power in Serbia from the late 1990s to the early 2000s and determined a relatively balanced foreign policy, based both on cooperation with Russia and China, and on the priority of European integration.
Following the results of the parliamentary elections, Vučić announced on December 18 that the ruling party coalition had received an absolute majority in parliament – it received more than 47% of the votes. Then the Serbian president noted that the coalition “Serbia must not stop” would receive at least 127 parliamentary seats out of 250. Also, according to Vucic, at least 67 out of 120 seats in the parliament of the autonomous region would be received.
After this, thousands of people protested in the center of Belgrade demanding that the results of the last elections be cancelled. They accused the authorities of fraud, signature stuffing, bribery of voters and unfair competition. It is noteworthy that the organizers of the protests were exclusively pro-Western parties, which have been in opposition for many years and criticize the course of the Serbian authorities towards independent politics.
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