Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic slammed the violence in the capital the evening before and claimed to have proof that it had been “fomented abroad”. Belgrade’s main ally, Moscow, has stepped up to the plate: “It is obvious that the West as a whole is seeking to destabilize the situation” in Serbia, declared the spokesperson for Russian diplomacy, Maria Zakharova, quoted by the agency public RIA Novosti.
She compared these protests to those of the Maidan in kyiv, which resulted in pro-Westerners coming to power in Ukraine in early 2014. “Attempts by third-party forces, including from abroad, to provoke such unrest in Belgrade are obvious,” echoed Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov during his daily press briefing.
During the December 17 election, Aleksandar Vucic’s party (SNS, nationalist right) obtained more than half of the 250 seats in Parliament. But the largest opposition coalition, Serbia Against Violence, denounced electoral fraud the next day, including allowing Serbian voters from neighboring Bosnia to vote illegally in the capital.
The European Union and Germany have criticized the situation, with Berlin calling the reported allegations “unacceptable” for a country hoping to join the European Union. At the head of his country, Aleksandar Vucic, has nevertheless been particularly adept at balancing ties between East and West, promising to keep Serbia on the path to membership in the EU, while remaining very close of Russia and courting China as much as Washington.
But, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Belgrade has never applied sanctions against Russia, from where it notably imports gas. Also, just like Belgrade, Moscow does not recognize the independence of Kosovo, a former Serbian province having proclaimed its break with Serbia in 2008, after a NATO aerial bombing campaign aimed at putting an end to the repression. Serbian against Kosovar Albanians.
Aleksandar Vucic’s successes in his country have mainly revolved around the economy, in one of the poorest countries on the European continent, which saw inflation reach 16% in the spring before decreasing to around 8% in November. For his supporters, however, Vucic’s years in power brought order – and billions in investment. Between 2012 and 2022, foreign direct investments in Serbia increased from 1 to 4.4 billion euros.
“Otpor” (Resistance)
In Belgrade, demonstrators, mainly students from the “Borba” (Combat) organization, are demanding the revision of the electoral lists which, according to them, are at the origin of electoral fraud. “I was born in 2002 and I didn’t think that I would have to fight for democracy in the streets like my parents did,” said Emilija Milenkovi, a student at the Faculty of Political Science.
“But I have to do it,” added the 21-year-old young woman wearing a badge from the historic Otpor (Resistance) student movement, which had participated in the protest against the power of Slobodan Milosevic in the 2000s. widespread criticism after international observers, notably from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) – denounced a series of “irregularities”, including “vote buying” and “ballot stuffing” .
Hundreds of people have since demonstrated daily in front of the Serbian Election Commission and international condemnations have poured in. Members of the main opposition list, Serbia Without Violence, began a hunger strike with the aim of overturning the results. On Sunday, demonstrators contesting these results attacked Belgrade town hall, smashing windows with stones, before being pushed back by the police.
President Vucic claimed that two police officers had been “seriously injured” during this demonstration during which at least 35 protesters were arrested. Opposition MP Radomir Lazovic, who was beaten by police during Sunday’s incidents, told AFP there was “always a possibility of stopping everything if they admit fraud and cancel the elections.” .