Serbian Elections Kick Off with Opposition Staying Away from Polls

TIRANA – Polling stations have opened in Serbia where over 6.5 million citizens have the right to vote on Sunday in parliamentary elections.
Voters will choose from 21 election lists to fill 250 places in the Serbian parliament. There are 8,253 polling stations, plus 140 for the Serbian community in Kosovo, whose independence Serbia does not recognise, and 42 for voters abroad.
Albanians in Presevo Valley participate in the elections with a joint candidate as political forces reached an agreementagreement earlier.
There are no expectations of surprises when it comes to the likely election winner – the governing Serbian Progressive Party. There is less certainty about how many voters will come out to vote and which parties will be in opposition, said Birn on Sunday.
Opposition parties gathered in the Alliance for Serbia already announced a boycott of the elections. There were some attempts at dialogue between the ruling party and opposition, but nothing came as a result.
The only major change that happened is that the ruling party lowered the threshold to enter parliament from 5 to 3 per cent, which has increased the chances of small parties getting some seats in the assembly.
Elections were scheduled for April 26 but were postponed as the country declared a state of emergency on March 15 until the state of emergency was lifted.
Serbia still has over 50 new cases of COVID-19 per day, and is the country with the highest number of infected people of all the former Yugoslavia countries./argumentum.al