President of Serbia, Aleksander Vucic, has declared a landslide victory for his right-wing party on Sunday night, in controversial parliamentary elections held despite coronavirus concerns, and a boycott from a majority of the country’s opposition and people.
President Vucic while addressing supporters of his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) which came into power in 2012, revealed that the party had secured a resounding win at the polls with over 60% of votes cast with its members set to occupy 190 seats in the 250 seats Serbian parliament, an increase from the 131 seats previously occupied.
“I have been long in politics but I never experienced such a moment,” said Vucic, who is also a co-founder and the leader if the party. “Tonight, we gained the huge trust of the people, the greatest ever in Serbia.”
Sunday’s vote was the first national election in Europe to take place since the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the continent.
Prior to Vucic’s announcement, polling agencies had suggested that SNS allied Socialist Party of Serbia (PNS) would come in second place, adding another 30 or so seats to the coalition as a whole.
Opposition Boycott and Poor Turnout
Of the 21 parties in Serbia, only four parties participated in the elections. Opposition parties had announced their decision to boycott the elections which they stated would not be free and fair but in favour of the ruling party. Citing Vucic’s grip on the media thanks to his fight against the coronavirus pandemic, and the inability of opposition parties to campaign due to the lockdown, opposition maintained that the scales were unbalanced and tilted towards SNS as voters headed to the polls to elect representatives.
The boycott and fear of the coronavirus also resulted in a poor turnout of voters with Politico reporting turn out to be around 49 per cent out of the country’s 6.6 million voters.
The election in Serbia was initially planned for April but postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic, came as Serbia is still reporting dozens of new cases each day after completely relaxing its strict lockdown rules.
