Election researcher: Vucic party clearly wins parliamentary elections in Serbia Elon Musk visits right-wing populist festival and calls on people to have children

President Aleksandar Vucic’s party won Serbia’s parliamentary elections on Sunday, according to election researchers. After counting 65 percent of the votes cast, Belgrade institutions Cesid and Ipsos saw the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) as clearly the strongest force with 47 percent of the votes.

Compared to the previous elections seventeen months ago, the SNS won three percentage points. If it remains that way, it would single-handedly have an absolute majority of 129 seats in the 250-seat People’s Assembly (Skupstina). The liberal opposition, which this time worked together as the electoral alliance ‘Serbia against Violence’, received 23 percent of the votes and can count on 63 seats.

Vucic dissolved parliament after less than two years. The reason for this was two shootings in May that left eighteen people dead, and conflicts in Kosovo, which has been independent since 2008. Serbia continues to claim its former province, now inhabited almost exclusively by Albanians, as its own.

The May shootings sparked a massive protest movement against the Vucic government. This led to the liberal opposition uniting to form the electoral alliance ‘Serbia against Violence’.

Critics accuse Vucic of an authoritarian style of government. According to the opposition, Sunday’s elections were also overshadowed by numerous violations and fraud. The state election commission plans to announce preliminary results on Monday. (sda/dpa)