Even though Vucic was not personally on the ballot in Sunday’s parliamentary and local elections, the contest was largely seen as a referendum on his government.
“My job was to do everything in my power to secure an absolute majority in the parliament,” Vucic told reporters as he celebrated what he said was the SNS victory.
The right-wing SNS looked poised to expand their presence in the 250-seat parliament with Sunday’s results. During the last election in 2022, the party secured just 120 seats, resulting in a coalition government.
The SNS still faced potentially hard-fought municipal races in the capital Belgrade, particularly from the loose coalition of opposition parties and candidates running under the Serbia Against Violence banner.
That movement was formed in the wake of back-to-back mass shootings earlier this year. They spurred hundreds of thousands to take to the streets in rallies that morphed into anti-government protests over several months.
The contest was not without controversy, with the opposition complaining of foul play.
“We call on all political actors in Serbia and the international community not to remain silent in the face of this brutal robbery,” said Djordje Miketic, a candidate linked with the Serbia Against Violence movement.
Earlier Sunday opposition leader Radomir Lazovic also complained of numerous “irregularities”, citing alleged “vote buying” and “falsification of signatures”.
“We may have had the dirtiest electoral process,” he added.
Posts on social media also fuelled rumours that the government allowed unregistered voters from neighbouring Bosnia to cast ballots illegally in the election.
Prime Minister Ana Brnabic dismissed the claims, accusing the reports of spreading chaos.
Vucic was omnipresent ahead of the vote – plastered on billboards and skyscrapers and the focus of wall-to-wall coverage on news channels.
He called the snap elections in November, the latest example of how governments under his rule rarely serve out their term – a move critics say is designed to keep the opposition off balance.
The contest comes less than two years after the last round of presidential and parliamentary voting, which saw Vucic and the SNS tighten their grip on power.
Serbia’s most popular politician and a one-time ally of Vladimir Putin, Vucic has sought to navigate the country toward EU membership while balancing its traditional ties with Russia.
Serbia’s EU accession ambitions have stumbled over persistent tensions with Kosovo, which seceded unilaterally from Serbia in 2008. Mending ties between the two is a prerequisite to joining the 27-member bloc.
Vucic, whose term ends in 2027, has leaned on his agenda of rebuilding Serbia’s infrastructure and luring investment, including from China, the Middle East and Russia.
The opposition has pilloried what they call his autocratic rule, which has stifled the media and promoted cronyism.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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