The Moscow-friendly Serbian president has been re-elected after being accused of bussing in 40,000 people to vote in liberal Belgrade.
Aleksandar Vucic said his populist Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) had won the election he called after two mass shootings triggered protests that weakened the president’s authority.
“This is an absolute victory and it makes me happy,” Mr Vucic said on Sunday before the official results, which are expected late on Monday.
His SNS party won some 47 per cent of the ballots in the parliamentary vote, enough for an absolute majority in the 250-seat parliament.
While the result, if confirmed, means SNS can rule alone it is likely to seek out junior coalition partners to bolster its slim majority of 127 members.
It was tailed by Serbia Against Violence, a pro-European group of parties, with 23 per cent, according to the preliminary tally.
SNS accused of election fraud
It accused SNS of election fraud, said it would complain to the state election commission and called for the ballot to be rerun.
“We have witnessed a serious attempt to steal elections,” Miroslav Aleksic, one of its leaders, said on Sunday evening.
Serbia Against Violence claimed that 40,000 identity documents were issued for people who do not live in the capital city, amid claims ethnic Serbs from neighbouring Bosnia were bussed en masse to Belgrade to vote.
Projections said SNS won 38 per cent of the ballots in Belgrade’s city hall election while Serbia Against Violence garnered 35 per cent.
There were allegations of voters being paid or pressured into voting for SNS as well as reports that a monitoring team was assaulted and their car was attacked with baseball bats in a town in northern Serbia.
Opposition parties and rights watchdogs also accuse the SNS of bribing voters, stifling media freedom, violence against opponents, corruption and ties with organised crime. Mr Vucic denies all claims regarding any manipulation of the election.
Serbian ties to Russia
Serbia and Russia have historical ties and Belgrade, which is heavily dependent on Russian gas, has not joined the West in imposing sanctions for the illegal invasion of Ukraine.
“We welcome this achievement from Mr Vucic,” said Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman.
He referred to Serbia, which is a candidate to join the EU, as a “brotherly” country, adding that Moscow hoped the result would lead to the “further strengthening of friendship” between the countries.
A considerable number of Serbians support Moscow’s illegal war in Ukraine and hate Kyiv-supporting Nato because of its airstrikes in wars after the collapse of the former Yugoslavia.
Belgrade has also become a hub for Russians critical of the offensive fleeing Moscow, with flights still open between the two countries, unlike from Russia to much of Europe.
Viktor Orban, the pro-Russian prime minister of neighbouring Hungary, also congratulated Mr Vucic on his “overwhelming election victory”.
The nationalist leader blocked an aid package worth €50 million (£43 million) for Ukraine and opposed opening up accession talks with Kyiv to join the bloc at a European summit last week.
The parliamentary election, the fifth since 2012, coincided with local elections in most municipalities, the capital Belgrade and the northern province of Vojvodina.
The election didn’t include the presidency, but governing authorities backed by the dominant pro-government media ran the campaign as a referendum on Mr Vucic.
May shootings rattled SNS power
The Western-facing Serbia Against Violence was influential in the months of protests triggered by two back-to-back mass shootings in May which saw 18 people murdered, including nine school students.
The shootings were carried out by a 13-year-old and a 21-year-old on consecutive days.
The carnage shook the SNS’ decade-long grip on power and the discontent was made worse by rising inflation, which hit eight per cent in November.
A total of 18 parties and alliances competed for the support of the electorate of 6.5 million voters.