Serbian protesters set up road block over alleged vote fraud

BELGRADE: Protesters on Monday launched the first of several announced road blocks in Belgrade over alleged electoral fraud in Serbia´s recent parliamentary and local elections, an AFP reporter saw.

President Aleksandar Vucic meanwhile denounced the violence in the capital the previous evening and claimed there was evidence it had been planned in advance. A few hundred demonstrators blocked the street in central Belgrade where the public administration and local self-government ministry is located.+

The protesters, mainly students organised under the “Borba” (Fight) movement, were supporting the outcry from the opposition that started on December 18th, a day after the elections. They are calling for a revision of the electoral list, claiming that it was the source of the alleged electoral fraud.

“I am born 2002, and I thought that there would be no need, as my parents did, to fight for democracy through the street,” 21-year-old politics student Emilija Milenkovic told AFP. “But I have to,” she added

She was wearing the badge of “Otpor”, the students´ movement that in the past organised protests against former president Slobodan Milosevic. After the December 17 elections, Vucic´s party said it had secured a commanding victory.

But international observers -- including representatives from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) -- reported “irregularities”, including “vote buying” and “ballot box stuffing”.