Xi felicitates Serbian head on reelection
Premier Li greets his Hungarian counterpart on 4th consecutive win
Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a message on April 5 to his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic, congratulating him on his reelection as president of the Balkan country.
Xi said that in recent years, the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Serbia has maintained a momentum of booming development, with political mutual trust consolidated and fruitful results achieved in practical cooperation.
Faced with global changes unseen in a century, the two countries have respected each other and treated each other with equality, jointly pushed forward the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, and made positive contributions to safeguarding international fairness and justice, he said.
Xi said he highly values the development of China-Serbia relations and cherishes the good working relationship and friendship that he has established with Vucic.
He also said that he stands ready to work with Vucic to strengthen strategic communication between the two countries, enhance mutual political trust, expand and deepen mutually beneficial cooperation in all fields, and guide the China-Serbia relationship to make new progress in order to benefit both countries.
Vucic declared victory on April 3 evening in both the presidential and parliamentary elections, saying he was proud to win the second outright mandate without going into a runoff.
“A huge thank you to the citizens of Serbia,” said the 52-year-old head of the Serbian Progressive Party, or SNS. He will serve another five years in his second term as president of the Balkan nation.
In the parliamentary election, the SNS won 43.4 percent of the votes, while The Socialist Party of Serbia — a longtime SNS coalition partner — won 11.7 percent. The main opposition group, United for Victory of Serbia, secured around 13 percent of the vote.
Under Vucic, Serbia has developed closer relations with China. Serbia has also been in accession talks with the European Union for many years.
Vucic was one of the heads of state who attended the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics in February.
During their meeting in Beijing, Xi praised the ironclad friendship between the two countries, saying that the two countries have set a good example of international relations.
Vucic won almost 60 percent of the vote in the presidential poll, some 40 points ahead of his closest challenger, media reports said on April 4, citing Serbia’s State Election Commission.
Zdravko Ponos, a retired army general representing the pro-European
and centrist Alliance for Victory coalition, came in second with 17.1 percent of the votes.
Separately, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang sent a message of congratulations on April 4 to his Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban on his Fidesz party’s win in the parliamentary elections.
In the message, Li stressed that as China and Hungary enjoy a profound traditional friendship, their bilateral relations have maintained high-level development in recent years.
He said that China is ready to work with Hungary to maintain the momentum of high-level exchanges, further enhance mutual strategic trust, and deepen practical cooperation in all areas, so as to lift the China-Hungary comprehensive strategic partnership to higher levels.
Orban won his fourth consecutive
term of four years in the country’s parliamentary election after his ruling Fidesz party beat a six-party opposition coalition to secure two-thirds of the seats.
Voter turnout hit 68.69 percent, almost matching the record of the last national elections in 2018.
Orban declared victory late in the evening on April 3 after the election.
“We won a victory so big that you can see it from the moon, and you can certainly see it from Brussels,” said the 68-year-old.
Orban has been at odds with Brussels for years over so-called rule of law and democracy issues. Earlier this year, the EU’s top court allowed the EU to block funding to Hungary and Poland for “violating democratic rights”.
“We will remember this victory until the end of our lives because we
had to fight against a huge amount of opponents,” Orban said in his victory speech.
Peter Marki-Zay, representing the opposition alliance United for Hungary, conceded defeat on April 3.
Both sides have exploited the issue of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, while the opposition alliance attacked Orban for his close ties with Russia.
Hungary, a member of both the EU and NATO, has condemned Russia for the special military operation and endorsed the EU’s economic sanctions, but it has opposed a ban on Russian energy imports and refused to supply weapons to Ukraine, which borders Hungary.