Vucic's ruling SNS party wins Belgrade vote rerun

The Belgrade Tomorrow coalition, led by SNS, won 52.8% of the vote in Belgrade, taking 64 seats in the city's 110-seat assembly, according to live data on the YouTube channel of the city's election commission, based on 94.3% of the counted votes.

"In Belgrade, our list will have 52% of the votes, which is an unbelievable victory," Aleksandar Vucic told a news conference on Sunday night. A video with his speech was uploaded on the SNS website.

On Sunday, local elections were repeated in Belgrade and in 87 out of 145 municipalities across the country. The rerun was called after the main opposition alliance in the country, Serbia Against Violence, insisted that both parliamentary and local elections held in December 2023 were allegedly fraught with irregularities, sparking significant street protests. In December, SNS won 47% of the snap general election vote, while Serbia Against Violence coalition came second with 23.28%.

On Sunday, SNS also declared victory in dozens of cities and towns across Serbia.

According to the Belgrade election commission data, I ja sam Beograd (I am Belgrade too), led by the opposition centre-right Kreni-Promeni (Move-Change) movement of lawyer Savo Manojlovic, came second on Sunday, with 17.7% of the vote and 21 city assembly seats. Third place went to the leftist green Biramo Beograd (We Choose Belgrade), which secured 12.15% of the vote and 14 seats. Fourth place was taken by the populist right-wing Mi Snaga Naroda (We - The Power of People), with 8.14% of the vote and 10 seats.

The election turnout was 46.16%, data from the Belgrade electoral commission showed.

Even though this has been the strongest result for the opposition since 2012, these elections had the largest number of irregularities, Kreni-Promeni's leader Manojlovic said at a news conference on Sunday night.

Manojlovic called for a boycott of the election results.

Tensions between SNS and opposition supporters escalated at several locations on Sunday, with daily Danas reporting about clashes between the police and opposition supporters who tried to raid an "illicit" SNS call centre in Novi Sad.

Following the December elections, 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”.

On Sunday, SNS won more votes in Belgrade compared with December, grabbing 64 assembly seats versus 54 in the December vote.