BELGRADE (Serbia), April 25 (SeeNews) – A coalition led by the conservative SNS party of Serbia's prime minister Aleksandar Vucic polled 48.26% of the votes in Sunday's early general elections in the country, preliminary official results showed on Monday.
Five political formations cleared the 5% barrier for entry into parliament, including the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) of Vojislav Seselj, who recently faced trial in The Hague for war crimes in former Yugoslavia, according to results of the Republic Electoral Commission based on 83% of the ballots counted. Another two formations are extremely close to making it into parliament.
The Serbian Socialist Party (SPS), led by deputy prime minister Ivica Dacic, and its partner United Serbia (JP) came second with 11.37%, the preliminary official results showed. Seselj's SRS was backed by 7.97% of voters, followed by the Democratic Party with 6.11% and the Dosta je bilo (Enough) political movement, led by Sasa Radulovic with 5.71%.
The Liberal Democratic Party and its partners gathered 4.98% of the votes and the far right pro-Russian DSS-Dveri coalition won 4.95%, according to the preliminary results.
"We fought fairly, I expect that Serbia will choose the future," Vucic said in Twitter on Sunday evening.
Voter turnout stood at 47.68% by 6.00 p.m., two hours before polling stations closed, according to official data.
According to the Belgrade-based think-tank Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID) voter turnout reached 53.2% by 8.00 p.m.
A total of 6.7 million people were eligible to cast a vote on Sunday, according to official data.
The elections were called by president Tomislav Nikolic last month at the proposal of Vucic, who has said the move would help Serbia unblock reforms and prepare for EU membership.
Analysts have commented that with the move Vucic is trying to capitalise on his high popularity, which exceeds that of his conservative SNS party and his coalition partners.
Two years ago Vucic again forced early elections, seeking broader public support to push through overdue reforms.
Serbia's 250 members of parliament are elected for a four-year term through a proportional representation voting system.