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Presidential elections were held in
Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...
on 2 April 2017. Incumbent president
Tomislav Nikolić Tomislav Nikolić ( sr-Cyrl, Томислав Николић, ; born 15 February 1952) is a Serbian former politician who served as the president of Serbia from 2012 to 2017. A former member of the far-right Serbian Radical Party (SRS), he di ...
was eligible to run for a second five-year term, but opted not to do so.
Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...
Aleksandar Vučić Aleksandar Vučić, (born 5 March 1970) is a Serbian politician serving as President of Serbia since 2017. A founding member of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), he previously served as President of the SNS from 2012 to 2023, Deputy Prim ...
was elected president in the first round. The election was marred by accusations of voter intimidation and a near total domination of the Serbian media by Vučić and his party. Following the announcement of the results, protests were held across Serbia against Vučić's victory. The
OSCE The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is a regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization comprising member states in Europe, North America, and Asia. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, the pr ...
have announced that there are reports of pressure on employees of state and state-affiliated institutions to support Vučić and secure, in a cascade fashion, support from subordinate employees, family members, and friends. The OSCE report noted that general reluctance of media to report critically on or to challenge the governing authorities significantly reduced the amount of impartial information available to voters, that all private national television channels displayed preferential treatment towards Vučić in their news programmes, and that public resources were used in support of Vučić, including endorsements and favourable articles in municipal information material. The
European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...
stated in its Serbia 2018 report that the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media had failed to address imbalances in media coverage during the presidential campaign. The ''
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
'' and
Reporters Without Borders Reporters Without Borders (RWB; ; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organisation, non-governmental organization headquartered in Paris, which focuses on safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its a ...
reported that Aleksandar Vučić, the candidate of the governing coalition, had ten times more airtime on national broadcasters than all other candidates combined and that mainstream media under Vučić's control have been demonizing most of the opposition presidential candidates, without giving them the opportunity to respond. This practice was different compared to the previous elections, when the two main candidates had approximately the same media coverage. Non-governmental organizations involved in election observation, ''CRTA'' and ''Bureau for Social Research'', emphasized that the presence of Aleksandar Vučić in newspaper and the electronic media during presidential campaign was disproportionate, adding that media have lost their critical role and that they have become a means of political propaganda.


Electoral system

The
President of Serbia The president of Serbia (), officially styled as President of the Republic (), is the head of state of Serbia. The current officeholder is Aleksandar Vučić, who was elected in 2017 and has held the role since 31 May 2017. According to the C ...
is elected for a five-year term using the
two-round system The two-round system (TRS or 2RS), sometimes called ballotage, top-two runoff, or two-round plurality, is a single-winner electoral system which aims to elect a member who has support of the majority of voters. The two-round system involves one ...
. Incumbent President's term is scheduled to expire on 31 May.


Candidates

Serbia's Electoral Commission confirmed eleven candidates. Candidate numbers were decided using a random draw on 17 March.


Opinion polls


Voter demographics

A public opinion survey, carried out by CeSID showed that significant proportions of Vučić supporters, the candidate of the governing coalition, were composed of
pensioner A pensioner is a person who receives a pension, most commonly because of retirement from the workforce. This is a term typically used in the United Kingdom (along with OAP, initialism of old-age pensioner), Ireland and Australia where someone of p ...
s (41%) and that the vast majority (63%) held a
secondary education Secondary education is the education level following primary education and preceding tertiary education. Level 2 or ''lower secondary education'' (less commonly ''junior secondary education'') is considered the second and final phase of basic e ...
degree, while 21% did not complete high school. The average age of his supporters was 55 years. The second most popular candidate, Janković, had slightly more women among his potential voters, who were on average 45 years old. The vast majority of his supporters (59%) had completed
higher education Tertiary education (higher education, or post-secondary education) is the educational level following the completion of secondary education. The World Bank defines tertiary education as including universities, colleges, and vocational schools ...
. In addition, he was supported by the majority of diaspora voters.


Conduct

The election was marred by accusations of voter intimidation and a near total domination of the Serbian media by Vučić and his party. Following the announcement of the results, protests were held across Serbia against Vučić's victory. There were several issues. First, the electoral campaign was short only fulfilling minimal requirement of 30 days, despite the fact that these were regular elections. Also, until the last day it was unclear if there would be only parliamentary elections or parliamentary and City of Belgrade elections which hampered electoral strategies of opposition candidates. Furthermore, the governing majority made a decision to dissolve the parliament during the campaign, which was not justified and badly hurt visibility of opposition. There were also a problems with imperfect electoral registers recorded which was similar as with previous elections. Controversy also arose regarding financing of electoral campaigns. Independent Investigative journalists reported that up to 6879 individual donors have provided Aleksandar Vučić's campaign with exactly 40.000 RSD each, which is near maximum amount and individual can contribute. The
OSCE The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is a regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization comprising member states in Europe, North America, and Asia. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, the pr ...
have announced that there are reports of pressure on employees of state and state-affiliated institutions to support Vučić and secure, in a cascade fashion, support from subordinate employees, family members, and friends. On 3 April 2017, the Republican Electoral Commission announced that the election results from two polling stations in
Bačka Palanka Bačka Palanka ( sr-cyrl, Бачка Паланка, ; ) is a town and municipality located in the South Bačka District of the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia. It is situated on the left bank of the Danube. In 2022 the town had a total ...
and
Zrenjanin Zrenjanin ( sr-Cyrl, Зрењанин, ; ; ; ; ) is a List of cities in Serbia, city and the administrative center of the Central Banat District in the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia. The city urban area has a population of 67,129 inh ...
would be annulled and followed by a repeat vote at those stations on 11 April. This was due to reports of
electoral fraud Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud, or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share o ...
. The following day, the election results were annulled in a further six municipalities, with re-runs also scheduled for 11 April. The repeat vote in the eight municipalities could not change the outcome of the elections, as there were only 9,851 voters who are eligible to vote, fewer than Vučić's margin of victory. In
Novi Pazar Novi Pazar ( sr-cyr, Нови Пазар) is a List of cities in Serbia, city located in the Raška District of southwestern Serbia. As of the 2022 census, the urban area has 71,462 inhabitants, while the city administrative area has 106,720 inha ...
, where Vučić recorded 74.43% of the vote, Sead Biberović from the Novi Pazar-based NGO called "Urban-IN" claimed that there were "serious crimes committed at multiple polling stations," and that "some people went from station to station, where they threatened, used ransoms, and lied". Rešad Hodžić, who was Saša Janković's campaign representative in Novi Pazar, claimed that "30,000 lists were prepared in the trunks of cars circulating between polling places, in an attempt to be cast into the voting boxes." He said that the Janković campaign workers did as much as they could to stop electoral fraud, going on to say: On 3 April, following the announcement of Vučić's victory, a student protest formed in front of the Serbian National Assembly, which, according to '' Danas'', was attended by over 10,000 people. Protests after the election results were announced emerged in 15 cities throughout Serbia.


Media freedom

The ''
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
'' and
Reporters Without Borders Reporters Without Borders (RWB; ; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organisation, non-governmental organization headquartered in Paris, which focuses on safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its a ...
reported that Aleksandar Vučić, the candidate of the governing coalition, had ten times more airtime on national broadcasters than all other candidates combined and that mainstream media under Vučić's control have been demonizing most of the opposition presidential candidates, without giving them the opportunity to respond. This practice was different compared to the previous elections, when the two main candidates had approximately the same media coverage. Non-governmental organizations involved in election observation, ''CRTA'' and ''Bureau for Social Research'', emphasized that the presence of Aleksandar Vučić in newspaper and the electronic media during presidential campaign was disproportionate, adding that media have lost their critical role and that they have become a means of political propaganda. The OSCE report noted that general reluctance of media to report critically on or to challenge the governing authorities significantly reduced the amount of impartial information available to voters, that all private national television channels displayed preferential treatment towards Vučić in their news programmes, and that public resources were used in support of Vučić, including endorsements and favourable articles in municipal information material. The
European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...
stated in its Serbia 2018 report that the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media had failed to address imbalances in media coverage during the presidential campaign. One day before the beginning of the
election silence Election blackout or election silence is the practice of banning political campaigning or media coverage of a general election, before or during that election. Often, the publication of opinion polls is illegal during this time. Operation In som ...
, seven major newspapers covered their entire front pages with adverts for Vučić. Slaviša Lekić, president of the ''Independent Journalist Association of Serbia'' said "With this, Aleksandar Vučić clearly demonstrated that he can control over everything in this country." Vučić was the subject of criticism and satire for the appearance of a show on Happy TV in the last days of the campaign, with guests including his parents, in which he offered assistance in front of the camera to a man who allegedly fainted.


Results

As Vučić received more than 50% of the vote in the first round, no second round was held.


References

{{Serbian elections Presidential elections in Serbia
Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...
Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...
Presidential