Vucic’s SNS takes about 50% in Serbian snap parliamentary elections – reports
Aleksandar Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) got somewhere between 48 and 50 per cent of the vote in Serbia’s snap parliamentary elections on March 16 2014, going by various reports of exit polls.
The SNS had been widely expected to produce a strong showing in the ahead-of-term elections, called on the initiative of the party not only to secure a fresh mandate for urgent reforms to address the dire economic situation but also to take advantage of momentum from the opening of the country’s accession negotiations with the European Union.
The party of outgoing prime minister, Ivica Dacic, was seen as having got about 14 to 15 per cent of the vote.
The opposition Democratic Party won about five per cent, being outdone by former president Boris Tadic’s breakaway New Democratic Party, estimated at seven per cent.
Unofficial estimates gave Vucic’s SNS about 160 seats in Serbia’s 250-seat parliament.
About 6.7 million Serbians were eligible to vote in the election, including Serbs in Kosovo, which declared itself independent of Belgrade in February 2008.
Turnout was reported at just more than 50 per cent at 7pm Belgrade time, indicating that the final figure would show a lower turnout than in the 2012 parliamentary elections in Serbia. Voter turnout among Serb voters in Kosovo was reported to be somewhere more than 28 per cent.
Vucic has said that even if his party won an absolute majority in the Serbian March 16 elections, it would seek a coalition partner to broaden the basis of consensus for profound reforms in the country.
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