December 27 (SeeNews) - Thousands of people gathered in the streets of Belgrade on Sunday demanding the annulment of a recent general election, won by the populist conservative Serbian Progressive Party of president Aleksandar Vucic, over alleged vote fraud, local media reported.
Protesters tried to break into the Belgrade City Hall, where the local electoral commission is based, but were dispersed by riot police, videos posted on the website of news outlet N1 on Sunday showed.
“It is important to maintain peace, arrest the perpetrators and provide a better future for our children,” Vucic said in an Instagram post.
Serbia’s electoral commission said last week that will hold a partial re-run of its parliamentary elections on December 30.
Last Tuesday, the European Union said Serbia's electoral process requires tangible improvement, after a team of international observers pointed to a series of irregularities, such as "vote buying" and "ballot box stuffing."
The Serbian Progressive Party, SNS, won 46.92% of the votes in the early general election, preliminary official results showed. The Socialist Party of Serbia, a partner of SNS in the current government coalition, was backed by 6.61%, and together, the two formations will have an absolute majority in the 250-seat parliament.