Voting Ends in Serbia, Turnout Higher than in 2020 Elections

Voting in Serbia (BetaPhoto/Emil Vas)

Voting in elections in Serbia for the president and parliament of Serbia and the Belgrade assembly and 12 other local assemblies, ended at 8 p.m. on April 3 at 8,267 ballot stations where 6,502,307 citizens had the right to vote.

The election process was marked by physical attacks on the leader of the Movement of Free Citizens, Pavle Grbovic, in Belgrade and on Serbian Progressive Party MP Bratislav Jugovic in Cacak, while independent observer missions and opposition parties reported numerous irregularities during voting, such as bribery, manipulation with ballots and violations of the secrecy of voting.

Voting for around 100,000 voters from Kosovo and Metohija was organized in the nearest municipalities in central Serbia – in Tutin, Raska, Kursumlija and Vranje. According to the Republic Electoral Commission the turnout by 6 p.m. was 50.82 percent. The Commission has said that the overall turnout could be between 58 and 60 percent, which is much higher than the 48.8 percent in the 2020 parliamentary elections.

The elections were monitored by more than 4,000 observers from the domestic CRTA and CeSID organizations, and the European Parliament's delegation, the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the European network of election monitoring organizations.