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Serbia's Aleksandar Vucic Prevails in Presidential Election, Clinches Second Term

Sputnik News

20220403
Kirill Kurevlev

On Sunday, Serbia held presidential elections, early elections of 250 deputies of parliament, as well as elections to local governments in some cities. Voting took place at more than 8,000 polling stations within the country and 77 abroad.

Incumbent Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced his victory in the first round of the presidential elections.

Vucic pointed out that he received around 60% of the total vote, about the same number of votes was predicted by political experts in these elections.

"I got 59.9% - 60.1% ...I now won about 2,245,000 votes in the first round," Vucic told his supporters, adding that voting data from about 85 percent of the polling stations in Serbia had been processed.

In addition, Vucic emphasized that he was "the first to win twice in the first round" in Serbia.

In his victory speech, the president also stressed that Serbia will continue to maintain friendly and partnership relations with Russia.

"I can promise you that we will not be throwing out Dostoevsky at schools, or Tchaikovsky in opera. Serbia will try to maintain partnership and friendly relations with Russia," Vucic said, reiterating that Belgrade is neutral with regard to military alliances and that "this policy will continue."

He pointed out that although Serbia is on the European path and has good relations in the region, it "should not lose traditional friendly relations."

At the same time, speaking about the outcome of the parliamentary elections, he noted the great influence that the conflict in Ukraine had on them. According to the president, the impact of the Ukrainian crisis on the election results was "enormous," as everything is politics shifted "sharply to the right."

Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party received fewer votes in this election, because it "did not flirt with the people," according to him. He pledged to take the populism of some of the contenders into account when forming new government and parliamentary factions, as well as not include those who "irresponsibly abused the attitudes of our people, but in fact never gave anything to the country."

He added that the Serbian Progressive Party and their coalition partner, the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians, were getting enough votes to form a parliamentary majority.

More than 6.5 million Serbs were eligible to vote in the Sunday general election, which was held from 7 am to 8 pm local time.

© Sputnik