Putin ally claims landslide victory
BELGRADE: Serbia’s prime minister claimed a landslide victory in Sunday’s presidential election, opening the way for him to strengthen his grip on power and give Russia a chance to deepen its influence in the Balkans.
Aleskandar Vucic won 55.08%, with 90.06% of votes counted, according to results shown at the State Electoral Commission headquarters yesterday. He eclipsed second-place challenger Sasa Jankovic, who won 16.27%. Mr Vucic declared himself the winner after parallel counts from polling agencies showed him with a majority. He said a new government will be formed in two months.
Mr Vucic, who served as the late Slobodan Milosevic’s information minister in the 1990s, will now shift from head of government to the more ceremonial presidential role, where he can nevertheless continue to hold sway as the head of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party. While he advocates EU membership, he’s pushing for stronger links with Russia as officials in the US and Europe accuse the Kremlin of promoting anti-establishment political forces and meddling in elections. Opposition leaders complain the tall, boyishlooking 47-year-old has suppressed their voices and marginalised media that doesn’t portray him positively.
“The first-round round victory gives Vucic a huge impetus for a shift toward a more authoritarian style,” said Bosko Jaksic, an independent foreign policy analyst at the New Policy Centre in Belgrade. “Vucic can perceive this triumph as a referendum on his rule, that he can have a free hand to pursue his policies in foreign and domestic affairs.”
Mr Vucic’s opponents have warned that the prime minister will name a compliant replacement and run the government behind the scenes. That may follow a trend of other leaders from Hungary to Turkey who eschew the concept of liberal European democracy in favour of the model followed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The result gives Mr Vucic the biggest victory since Slobodan Milosevic won 65% in 1990, just before the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia. Echoes of that conflict, the deadliest in Europe since World War II, crept into the campaign, with Mr Vucic holding his biggest rally on the anniversary of the start of the 1999 Nato-led bombing that drove Milosevic’s forces from Kosovo.
He has also tried to deepen ties with Russia, Serbia’s biggest ally in condemning the air campaign and rejecting its loss of Kosovo, which declared independence
in 2008. In his last official state visit before the vote, Mr Vucic travelled to Moscow to discuss the delivery of MiG fighter jets and armored vehicles with Mr Putin, whom Serbia welcomed with its first full military parade since Communist times in 2014. Mr Vucic also reiterated his opposition to the EU’s sanctions against Russia, which shares Orthodox religious and cultural ties with the Serbs.
Still, since Milosevic’s ousting in 2000, the biggest former Yugoslav republic has inched toward EU membership, extraditing dozens of war crimes suspects for prosecution, fighting corruption and changing laws.
Mr Vucic touts a friendship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and has pledged to ready Serbia for accession by 2020. However, Serbia hasn’t normalised ties with Kosovo, overhauled the courts or fully retooled its economy.
Living standards for the seven million Serbs are just above a third of the EU average.
It’s the third election victory in a row for Mr Vucic and his party, which opposition leaders say has used its ruling position unfairly to its advantage.
Before Sunday’s vote, he’d called and won two snap elections since 2014 that kept rival parties on the back foot.
Mr Vucic has rejected the opposition’s complaints as an attempt to sow instability.
“Voters showed support for the continuation of the reform process, for the continuation of Serbia’s European path, while preserving traditional friendships that we have with both Russia and China,” he said after declaring victory.