On Dec. 17, 2023, Serbia held an election for members of Parliament and local governments.
The election revealed the existence of a major fracture in Serbian society caused by the impossibility of having more votes cast than there are electors.
Following the election, Serbia endured ghastly scenes of destruction and violence.
To understand the present volatility, it is useful to recount the previous election, held in the summer of 2020.
The major opposition party, the Alliance for Serbia, refused to participate in the election of 2020 on the grounds that the conditions for free and fair elections had not been met.
Consequently, the ruling party, the Serbia Progressive Party, led by President Aleksandar Vučić won 188 seats and together with its coalition partner, the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS)—the former party of Slobodan Milošević, who was toppled in the Revolution of Oct. 5, 2000—won 220 seats out of 250 in the Serbian Parliament.
In May 2023, Serbia experienced two mass shootings, one in an elementary school and another in a village near Belgrade. People blamed the ruling government for failing to prevent these two tragic events.
Since then, every Saturday afternoon, there have been peaceful protests by ordinary citizens in Belgrade and occasionally in other cities in Serbia, which has grown steadily.
The ruling coalition government allowed these protests because of their sensitive nature, but in the media, it excoriated the leaders of these protests, suggesting that the protestors’ claims were misleading ordinary people.
Serbians put pressure on the government to call an early election. They claimed that Serbia was sliding into authoritarianism, and they lamented the parlous economic situation of the country.
Against this backdrop of societal unrest, the government called for early elections to be held on Dec. 17.
In any event, the ruling party wanted breathing space and sought to postpone the decision on the recognition of Kosovo’s independence, which is one of the demands of the European Union (EU) to join the bloc.
The Simple Math Problem
However, the Opposition and people contested the results for a simple, yet compelling, reason—that the number of votes cast sharply exceeded the number of electors.According to the 2022 census, 6,664,449 people reside in Serbia (excluding Kosovo), of which 14.4 percent are young people under 18 and ineligible to vote.
The capital Belgrade has a population of 1,684,259. According to the Republic’s Electoral Commission, in the Republic of Serbia, there are 6,500,666 registered voters, with 1,613,369 in Belgrade.
Considering the high number of ineligible youths, the number of electors clearly should have been less than claimed by the Commission.
On Dec. 18—the first day after the election—the protests began.
Protestors were mostly students, young families, and “Belgraders.” The first week of protests was peaceful. The people would gather in front of the offices of the Electoral Commission and demand a new vote for Belgrade.
On Christmas Eve, the protests started in front of the Electoral Commission and then moved to the Office of the Mayor of Belgrade.
The mayor’s building served as the old palace of the Serbian kings until the monarchy was abolished in late 1945. The building is very much liked and cherished by the inhabitants of Belgrade.
On Christmas Eve, men dressed in black jackets, hoods, and face masks started throwing paving stones at the building. These anonymous men were joined by members of the regular crowd, mostly youth, in their destructive exploits.
Riot police, strategically positioned within the mayor’s building, lurking beside the main door and windows, defended the historic structure.
For two hours, the shadowy black men and their youth co-adventurers threw rocks, stones, and whatever they could find through broken windows and police fought back with pepper spray and tear gas.
At exactly 10 p.m., when there were about 2,000 protestors, riot police emerged from inside the mayor’s building and started to beat students and youngsters. The police removed the protestors from the mayor’s precinct within five minutes and from then on, only media representatives were allowed to stay.
In total, police arrested 38 people, seven policemen were injured (one with a cracked head, which a colleague inflicted); the injured number of protestors is unknown.
On Christmas Day, the protests continued peacefully. The people of Belgrade only asking for a new vote with the true number of voters that match the number of people from the 2022 census.
Is this too much in such a volatile environment?
What Does This Mean for Serbia?
In the past, instances of resistance to the government in Belgrade have mostly been non-violent in nature.This is amply demonstrated by the largely—but not completely—peaceful Revolution of Oct. 5, 2000, also known as the “Bulldozer” Revolution because protestors used heavy equipment to charge the radio and television station of Belgrade, regarded as a propaganda mouthpiece of then-President Milošević.
The situation in Serbia is, of course, closely watched by the EU. Serbia applied to join the EU in 2009 and has been an associate member and candidate for membership since 2012.
It is reasonable to assume that the recent disturbances, and claims of the re-emergence of authoritarianism, will result in a postponement of Serbia’s incorporation into the EU.
The intractable problems associated with the EU request that Serbia recognise the independence of Kosovo where Motohija—the birthplace of the Serbs—is located, has made this process even more difficult.
The journey to democracy is fraught with dangers, which will undoubtedly challenge Serbia in the future. It is a journey that has been temporarily halted by a simple, yet captivating, arithmetic problem.
