Various opposition party leaders in Serbia have condemned Sunday night’s police raid on the premises of the opposition People’s Movement of Serbia, NPS, over alleged violations of voting rights at local polls during the day.
Local elections were held in 10 towns in Serbia on Sunday in a tense atmosphere amid long-running anti-government protests in the country. In most of the municipalities, election monitors reported electoral irregularities, physical violence and other incidents at polling stations.
The head of the Free Citizens Movement, Pavle Grbovic, described the police raid on the NPS offices in Belgrade as an “example of political repression”.
Another opposition party, Serbia Centre, SRCE, said in a press release that the “intrusion of armed [police] units into party premises while citizens’ votes are being counted in local elections is an act of state terror, in which, in addition to the police, a part of the Prosecutor’s Office is also involved”.
“The raid on the premises of a parliamentary party immediately after the closing of the polls is nothing more than an attempt to intimidate controllers, activists and citizens who are fighting to defend every vote tonight, but also an attempt by the regime to divert attention from the violence and numerous irregularities during the elections in 10 cities and municipalities,” it added.
Armed police entered the Belgrade offices of the NPS, a small centrist party with 10 MPs, on Sunday night. According to videos that NPS members published on social media, they thoroughly searched the premises. The police have not said anything as yet about the raid.
NPS president Miroslav Aleksic said on Sunday that while they were in their offices waiting for the local election results to come in, around 10 policemen with a search warrant entered the building. Their warrant was to search the premises but they also demanded phones and laptops, which the party declined to hand over.
“Then they called reinforcements, four or five jeeps from an intervention unit arrived, then they entered here. We didn’t give them our telephones. They are here now, standing in front of me. They put us all in one big room and we can … only go out accompanied by police officers, even if it is to the toilet,” Aleksic told N1 Television via video call from the premises.
At a press conference held after the polls were closed, President Aleksandar Vucic accused people from the NPS of calling voters, claiming to be calling from President’s office and urging them not to vote for his list but for the opposition. “Of course, all the phones were caught, I believe that these people will all be arrested, because these are things that our democracy cannot tolerate,” Vucic said.
No prosecutor’s offices in Belgrade have commented on the incident yet.
The local elections were the latest electoral test for Vucic’s governing Serbian Progressive Party amid ongoing protests sparked by the November 2024 Novi Sad station disaster. Official results have yet to be published but the Progressive Party has claimed victory in all 10 towns – although only by a narrow majority in some of them.