MSeveral thousand supporters of the Serbian opposition demonstrated in Belgrade on Sunday evening against alleged fraud in the local elections a week ago. It was the seventh protest in a row. This time, the participants in the rally marched to Belgrade City Hall, which they attempted to enter by force. They threw stones, sticks and eggs at the building and broke windows, the AFP news agency observed at the scene. Police forces used tear gas against the demonstrators, local media reported. A total of 30 police officers were injured and over 30 demonstrators were arrested.
President Aleksandar Vucic spoke on the pro-government channel Pink TV of an attempt to “forcibly take over state institutions.” It was a planned attack: “Everything was prepared in advance,” he said. There is “solid evidence” of this. The president had previously spoken of “dramatic scenes”. But there is “no revolution underway”.
Vucic's right-wing populist SNS party clearly won in the parliamentary elections on Sunday last week. Local elections were also held that day. In the capital, the SNS's success was narrow. According to the opposition, this too had only come about through massive fraud.
Election observers and the media reported numerous irregularities. Among other things, buses are said to have brought people from the Serbian part of Bosnia-Herzegovina to the Belgrade Arena, where they cast votes without being eligible to vote.
An international observer mission reported a number of “irregularities” after the election, including cases of violence, vote buying and the stuffing of ballot boxes with fraudulent ballots. Citing this report, the Foreign Office in Berlin said the violations were “unacceptable for a country with EU candidate status.”
The election results sparked days of protests in front of the Serbian Election Commission building. Several representatives of the loose opposition alliance Serbia Against Violence went on hunger strike to demand an annulment of the election results.
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