BELGRADE -- Incumbent Aleksandar Vucic, according to an early official count, has won Serbia’s presidential vote, while his ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) also appears to have taken the most votes in parliamentary elections.
The National Electoral Commission said on April 4 that with 87.7 percent of the ballots counted, Vucic had 59.5 percent, enough to avoid a runoff with his closest competitor, opposition candidate Zdravko Ponos, who is trailing in second place at 17.5 percent. Lawyer and politician Milos Jovanovic was third among the eight candidates running with 5.8 percent of the vote.
The deadline for announcing the final results is April 7.
SEE ALSO: In Serbia, Threats And Insults Are A Cost Of Reporting On Russia's Invasion Of UkraineIn the concurrent parliamentary elections, the SNS led with 43.4 percent, while its longtime coalition partner, the Socialist Party of Serbia, was third with 11.7 percent. Ponos's United for Victory alliance obtained 13.1 percent of all ballots cast in the April 3 vote.
Vucic has already declared victory, saying in a televised acceptance speech that he would stay the course of balancing the country's European Union membership aspirations with Belgrade's close and developing ties with Moscow and Beijing.
"We will maintain the policy that is important for the Europeans, Russians, and Americans, and that is...military neutrality," he said.
"Serbia will try to preserve friendly and partnership relations in many areas with the Russian Federation," Vucic added, while admitting Moscow's war in Ukraine had impacted the campaign as voters sought stability.
Serbia gets almost all of its gas supplies from Russia, while its army has close ties with Russia's military.
Further adding to the tight relationship between Moscow and Belgrade, the Kremlin also supports Serbia's opposition to the independence of Kosovo by blocking its membership to the United Nations.
Ponos, a retired military general, remained defiant in defeat, saying that Vucic will be exposed for his mismanagement of the country.
“These elections are [the] beginning of the end of Aleksandar Vucic…. We will not waste this,” he said.
SEE ALSO: With New Tactics And New Blood, Serbia's Opposition Is Trying To Become Relevant AgainWhile the nongovernmental Center for Research, Transparency, and Accountability (CRTA) said its observers submitted five criminal complaints to authorities over “irregularities,” election officials said the process had been carried out overall “without major problems” and in a “democratic manner.”
The issues mentioned by the CRTA included the buying of votes at polling stations, keeping parallel voter lists, violating the secrecy of the ballot, recording events at polling stations, as well as the presence of unauthorized persons at polling stations.
The elections were monitored by more than 4,000 observers, as well as delegations from the European Parliament, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, and the European Network of Election Observation Organizations.
Five years after winning his first term as president, Vucic remains the dominant force in Serbia, preaching peace and stability at a time when Europe is being rocked by its biggest conflict since the end of World War II with Russia's war against Ukraine.
But his critics complain he has tightened his grip on power through his control of the media and government to a point where a survey last month by the pollster Demostat showed 43 percent of the country didn't believe the elections would be free or fair.
"In recent years, the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) has steadily eroded political rights and civil liberties, putting pressure on independent media, the political opposition, and civil society organizations," Freedom House said in its latest assessment of Serbia, which it ranked 62nd out of 100 nations in its freedom index for 2021.