April 25 (SeeNews) - A coalition led by the conservative SNS party of Serbia's prime minister Aleksandar Vucic polled 48.25% of the votes in Sunday's early general elections in the country, preliminary official results showed on Monday.
Seven 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 97.46% of the ballots counted.
The Serbian Socialist Party (SPS), led by deputy prime minister Ivica Dacic, and its partner United Serbia came second with 11.1%, the preliminary results showed. Seselj's SRS was backed by 8.05% of voters, followed by the Democratic Party with 6.05% and the Dosta je bilo (Enough) political movement, led by Sasa Radulovic with 5.99%.
The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its partners gathered 5.03% of the votes and the far right pro-Russian DSS-Dveri coalition won 5.0%.
Based on the preliminary official results, the SNS will control 131 seats in the 250-member parliament. The SPS will have 30 MPs versus 21 for the SRS and 16 each for the Democratic Party and the Enough movement. The Dveri-DSS coalition won 13 seats, as much as the LDP-led coalition.
Four other political formations of ethnic minorities for which the 5% entry threshold does not apply will have 9 seats and the Green Party will have one MP.
A total of 6.7 million people were eligible to cast a vote on Sunday, according to official data.
According to the Belgrade-based think-tank Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID) voter turnout stood at 53.2%.
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.
Commenting on the election outcome late on Sunday, Vucic said it shows strong support for democratic reforms in the country. He, however, added that the lineup of the new cabinet would be different from the incumbent one.
Serbia may profit from a rather strong mandate for the EU and reform-oriented current government, Raiffeisen analysts too commented.
Two years ago Vucic again forced early elections, seeking broader public support to push through overdue reforms.
For their part, Erste group analysts said that although the radicals and right-wing powers could jointly have around 35 seats in the parliament, they are expected to act as a loud pro-Russian opposition without impact on the legislation procedures.Raiffeisen's analysts assessment of the election results is that Serbia may profit from a rather strong mandate for the EU and reform-oriented current government.
The election process, however, was marked by a number of irregularities, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Biased media coverage, undue advantage of incumbency and a blurring of distinction between state and party activities unleveled the playing field for contestants on the elections held over the weekend, the OSCE mission in Serbia said in a statement. Other key shortcomings include insufficient rules on candidate registration, ineffective measures against the misuse of administrative resources for campaigning, inadequate regulation of campaign finance, deficiencies in dispute resolution, absence of sanctions for certain violations, and the lack of provisions on observers, it added.