Serbia's Ruling Party Wins Belgrade Elections

The ruling Serbian Progressive Party won most votes in Sunday's Belgrade City Assembly elections and will most likely continue to run the capital for the next four years, preliminary results show.

Party chief and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said the party's nominee for the post of mayor would be revealed within 15 days.

"This result will inspire more changes," Vucic said after the polls closed on Sunday evening.

The Progressives got around 45 per cent of the vote and won 63 seats in the 110-seat city assembly, according to IPSOS Strategic Marketing agency.

They will be able to form a city government without needing a coalition partner,

The list led by former Belgrade mayor Dragan Djilas ranked second with 18.8 per cent of the vote and got 26 seats, while the list led by Aleksandar Sapic, the head of the New Belgrade municipality, scored 9.1 per cent and got 13 seats.

The Socialist Party of Serbia, the Progressives' coalition party in the state government, won 6.1 per cent. It will have eight seats in the city assembly.

All the other parties, including the Democratic Party, the Dveri-Enough is Enough coalition, the Let's Not Drown Belgrade civic group and the Serbian Radical Party, failed to meet the threshold to win seats in the asseembly.

The Centre for Research, Transparency and Accountability, CRTA, the NGO which monitored the elections, said it observed irregularities and incidents at eight per cent of the polling stations.

The incidents included activists bringing voters to the polling stations in organised groups, the keeping of records of voters at the polling stations, as well as schemes whereby citizens were given pre-filled ballots ahead of the election.

CRTA director Rasa Nedeljkov said...