Political tensions high in Serbia amid vote fraud protests

"I will continue to come despite the holidays," said a student, as she moved through the small crowd in central Belgrade.

Many fellow demonstrators also brought along sleeping bags and blankets to the road blockade, ahead of an even bigger protest planned for Saturday.

"We want proper electoral registers and new elections under fair conditions. I hope many more people will take to the streets," she told DW on Friday evening.

But despite these small daily protests in the Serbian capital, the vast majority of people are staying home. Few believe they can make a difference.

"For 99% of people, the election is over," political scientist Boban Stojanovic told DW. People are preparing for New Year's Eve parties, and the family celebrations to mark Orthodox Christmas at the beginning of January.

But the pro-European opposition alliance Serbia Against Violence, which ended up as the second-strongest force in the December 17 election, is still trying to spark public interest by resorting to drastic measures.

In the two weeks since the vote, seven politicians have gone on a hunger strike. Some have already given up due to health reasons, but Marinika Tepic, one of the leading opposition figures, has held out the longest at 12 days.

"I'm just hungry for freedom and justice," she told reporters.

Protesters call for new elections

According to official results, President Aleksandar Vucic's powerful ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) won another landslide victory in the parliamentary and local votes — via massive fraud, claims the opposition, which has called for a new election.

The results of the symbolically important election in Belgrade have sparked the most unrest. The reason: in the capital, the SNS and its coalition partner, the Socialist Party of Serbia, won exactly half of the 110 parliamentary seats. They need just one more to continue governing.

Another possible coalition partner is a surprise wild card, the controversial doctor and conspiracy theorist Branimir Nestorovic. His right-wing populist movement We — The Voice of the People won six seats in Belgrade.

Opposition claims tens of thousands of 'phantom voters'

"We are certain that the elections in Belgrade were rigged," said Rasa Nedeljkov, program director for The Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA). The opposition has said the ruling party used vote buying, voter intimidation, and above all, widespread falsification of the electoral register to rig the election, Nedeljkov told the Belgrade weekly Vreme.

CRTA reported one example of 40 voters registered in a single Belgrade apartment of just 58 square meters (528 square feet) in size, among many similar such cases.

The opposition has also claimed that tens of thousands of voters from other cities or the neighboring Republika Srpska, a Serb-run mini-state in Bosnia, were chauffeured to Belgrade to bolster support for the SNS.

"There were tens of thousands of these 'phantom voters' who don't even live in Belgrade. A third of them actually voted and had a decisive influence on the result," a source inside the Belgrade election commission told DW.

According to Serbian law, it is possible for citizens to re-register and vote immediately at a new place of residence. However, bogus addresses would be a case for the police and the public prosecutor's office.

All about Vucic

The opposition has also accused the Serbian judiciary of lacking independence. Like most of the media, public employers and oligarchs, it is kept on a tight leash by President Vucic and his SNS.

Vucic has ruled Serbia with an iron fist for more than six years, appearing in almost daily TV monologues speaking about Serbia's economic successes and criticizing the failures of the opposition and the few remaining critical media sources.

Vucic himself was not up for election on December 17 — yet everything revolved around him. He claimed the opposition was aiming to destabilize the country on behalf of Western states, with tabloids reporting they were planning a "color revolution" like Ukraine's Maidan protests in 2014 which ousted pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych.

Germany has been cited as a suspected supporter of the protests. The Federal Foreign Office called the events on election day "unacceptable for an EU candidate country," citing a critical report by observers with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Vucic unmoved by protests

While European politicians have been critical, Vucic has received some support — and not just from Moscow.

On Monday, Christopher Hill, the US ambassador to Serbia, struck a conciliatory tone on X, formerly Twitter. "I have every confidence Serbia will come through these challenges with its democracy strengthened," he wrote. "All of Serbia's citizens have a right to be heard and a responsibility to express their political views peacefully and without resort to violence."

The current wave of protests is nothing new for Vucic. In the spring, there were large demonstrations after two mass shootings left 18 people dead, back-to-back tragedies which would give rise to the opposition coalition Serbia Against Violence. So far, Vucic has remained unfazed by such protests.

It could be the same this time, said Zoran Stojiljkovic, who teaches political science at the University of Belgrade. "Success requires the synergy of three factors: opposition cohesion, the energy and perseverance of the demonstrations and pressure on Vucic from abroad," he told DW.

Currently, it doesn't appear the protests will achieve their aims. Observers suspect Vucic will send "a sign of goodwill" to the EU by repeating the election in Belgrade — supposedly because he doesn't expect to find a majority there. But many suspect they haven't seen the end of election fraud.

This article was originally written in German.