BELGRADE (Serbia), April 3 (SeeNews) – Serbia's central election commission said on Monday that based on the ballots cast in 92% of the polling stations, prime minister Aleksandar Vucic won 55.1% of the votes in the first round of the presidential election on Sunday.
Vucic, who is the leader of the conservative Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), was backed by 1.846 million voters out of 3,349,756 who went to the polls, the election commission said in a statement.
He was followed by Serbia's ombudsman Sasa Jankovic with 16.27%, or 545,039 votes. Luka Maksimovic, a student in political sciences nominated by a group of citizens, was third with 9.44%, or 316,068 votes.
Vuk Jeremic, who served as Serbia's foreign minister between 2007 and 2012, and the leader of nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS) Vojislav Seselj were supported by 5.64% and 4.47%, respectively.
"This is an important day as it showed the way Serbia wishes to go, it is important that the victory is crystal-clear as the gap is not small," Vucic told a news conference late on Sunday, as quoted in a statement published on his party's website.
The new government will be formed in the coming two months, by the end of May, when the mandate of incumbent president Tomislav Nikolic expires, Vucic added.
Serbia is run by a coalition government of the SNS and the Socialist SPS party.