Outcome of Serbian parliamentary elections still undecided

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The process of electing a new Serbian parliament began on April 3 and is still not over because one polling station in the south of the country is set to vote again to decide if the one remaining seat goes to an Albanian minority party or to a member of the ruling coalition.

The polling station in the village of Veliki Trnovac was scheduled to hold a vote for the fourth time on Thursday, June 23 but the members of the voting board argued and failed to reach agreement on who would do what, effectively canceling the vote.

Under Serbian law, the final results of elections can’t be declared before every polling station deals with complaints and completes any repeat voting. That also means that a new government can’t be elected, leaving Ana Brnabic’s cabinet in power albeit with powers limited under the law.

Voters in Veliki Trnovac voted on April 3 and two more times with complaints filed after every vote. The vote was repeated on April 28 with the latest round of voting was on May 27. The complaints filed with the Republic Election Commission (RIK) were mainly over procedural irregularities, with the Coalition of Albanians of the Valley filling a complaint in court after it failed to cross the threshold needed to win a seat in parliament. That national minority’s local rival is Parliament Speaker Ivica Dacic’s Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), a coalition partner of President Aleksandar Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). The outcome of the vote will determine which of those two parties gets a seat in parliament, leaving the other without it.

Veliki Trnovac has 1,908 residents eligible to vote. It has a majority ethnic Albanian population.

Observers say that the situation has given the authorities time to decide what to do once parliament is formed – who to try to win over into the ruling coalition and who to offer state posts to.