BELGRADE, December 20. /TASS/. Serbia will hold a re-run of its recent parliamentary elections at 28 polling stations following complaints about election procedure, said Republican Election Commission Chairman Vladimir Dimitrijevic.
According to the commission, 12,240 people will be eligible to cast their ballots again at the polling stations in question. The election re-run is set to take place on December 30.
The Aleksandar Vucic - Serbia Must Not Stop coalition continues to lead in the elections with 46.7% after 99.66% of ballots were counted. That equals 1,780,229 votes. The first runner-up is the opposition alliance Serbia Against Violence with 23.69%. Next comes the coalition called Ivica Dacic - Prime Minister of Serbia with 6.55%.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, a member of the Serbian Progressive Party, said earlier that the coalition Aleksandar Vucic - Serbia Must Not Stop would gain an absolute majority of seats in the legislature, or more than 127 seats out of 250.
Serbs went to the polls recently to elect members of the National Assembly for a term of four years. Also, there were elections to the councils of 65 cities and municipalities, including Belgrade and the autonomous province of Vojvodina. More than 6.5 million people were eligible to vote. A total of 8,273 polling stations were opened in Serbia and 81 polling stations in 35 other countries, including Russia. Election results have to be announced within 96 hours from the closing of polling stations, or by 7 p.m. GMT on December 21.
Belgrade protests
TASS earlier reported that supporters of the opposition alliance Serbia Against Violence protested outside the office of the country’s election commission for a second day on Tuesday. They plan to continue rallying until the outcome of the election to the Belgrade city council is overturned.
Protesters hurled eggs, tomatoes, beer cans and firecrackers at the main entrance to the election commission’s building. They also sought to stop commission members from leaving the building after a meeting on Monday, hurling garbage at them. Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said that some of the people that gathered in front of the commission’s office assaulted the director of the country’s Statistics Agency, Miladin Kovacevic, and pushed him to the ground.
The Serbian prime minister said the opposition had not only planned protests throughout its campaign, but also wanted to use them "to come to power through revolution."
The opposition has said it is disputing the victory of the ruling party-led coalition in the elections to the Belgrade City Council. According to preliminary data from the city election commission, when 92.46% of the ballots were processed, the Aleksandar Vucic - Belgrade Must Not Stop bloc gained 341,992 votes, or 39.35% of the total (winning 49 out of 110 council seats), while the opposition bloc Serbia Against Violence mustered 297,751 votes, or 34.26% of the total (winning 42 seats).