Early estimates: SVM three seats, Albanians one or none
Vucic and a CeSID and Ipsos projection on a 56 percent sample give the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians three seats but differ on the Albanian Coalition. These are not final results.
Early estimates for minority lists in the October 25 elections agree on one point: the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (SVM) wins three seats. For the Albanian Coalition the numbers diverge, as Aleksandar Vucic speaks of one seat while the CeSID and Ipsos projection gives none. None of this is a final result from the Republic Electoral Commission (RIK).
What did Vucic say about the minority lists?
At around 9:35 p.m., in an address in which he conceded defeat for his list “Aleksandar Vucic - United Serbia,” Vucic named the minority lists that entered parliament: “The Vojvodina Hungarians got in with three seats, and the Albanians with one seat, and I think it’s the SDA, don’t hold me to my word.” According to him, the figures come from preliminary data based on a stratified sample, not from the RIK.
What does the CeSID and Ipsos projection say?
At 10:03 p.m., CeSID and Ipsos released a projection based on 56 percent of the sample processed. The student list, Students Win, has 139 seats in it, and the list “Aleksandar Vucic - United Serbia” has 104. Among the minority lists:
- Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians - Dr. Balint Pastor: three seats
- Rasim Ljajic - Ljudski (SDP - CDP): one seat
- SDA of Sandzak - Cuvari Sandzaka: one seat
- Albanian Coalition - Koalicioni Shqiptar: zero
- List of Usame Zukorlic (SPP) - Movement for Unification: zero
The seats in the projection add up to 248 of 250, and the release does not say who gets the remaining two.
Where do the numbers differ?
On the Albanian Coalition. Vucic gives it one seat, the projection none, and list leader Saip Kamberi talked about a fight for two. He appeared live on an RTK link, in Albanian, shortly before polls closed and said the list was fighting for a second seat, while the third, in his words, had been lost to the deactivation of addresses. He called the practice systematic discrimination against Albanians in the Presevo Valley and singled out Medvedja. According to Kamberi, the affected people were also removed from the voter rolls.
Translated from Albanian, Kamberi said: “That put us in a situation where we lost the third seat we were counting on.” On turnout he said: “If turnout goes up to 70 percent, as people are saying, then more votes will certainly be needed. In the case of a result between 61 and 65 percent, we have very realistic chances of winning the second seat as well.”
Kamberi also gave preliminary figures for 7 p.m.: in Presevo, 16,600 citizens voted at 37 polling stations, and 10,853 voters at the Albanian polling stations in Bujanovac. He also thanked citizens who came from Kosovo to vote.
Pastor: we will accept the result, however many seats we win
Balint Pastor, SVM president and list leader, voted at 9 a.m. in Subotica, with his wife, at polling station number 35 in the Health Center. His statements to reporters date from the morning vote, before any estimates, and are translated here from Hungarian: “We will certainly accept the result, regardless of how many seats we win.” He also said: “I hope turnout will be high and that whoever wins today’s election will have great legitimacy. I hope that, whatever the result, everyone will recognize the election.”
Balint Juhasz, chairman of the SVM Executive Board, said after voting:
“For us, the stake is whether the political strength of the Vojvodina Hungarians will be preserved. Today we are forging our strength together, and it will determine our room for maneuver in the period ahead.”
Juhasz named opening classes with a small number of pupils and infrastructure projects as priorities. Pastor thanked voters for their trust on Facebook. Reporters gathered at SVM headquarters, and a news conference is expected after 11 p.m.
Ljajic: high turnout does not suit us
Rasim Ljajic, president of the Social Democratic Party of Serbia and leader of the Rasim Ljajic - Ljudski list, spoke after voting in Novi Pazar. His expectation: “We will see whether it will deliver the results we expect, which is to win the largest number of votes in Novi Pazar since the introduction of the multiparty system.” He also said he expects the list to surprise, at the national level, those who underestimated it in analyses and polls.
On turnout he said:
“For us, if we look at it narrowly from a party standpoint, high turnout does not suit us, because it raises the price of a seat. For the development of a democratic society, though, this is a good thing.”
He also said: “Society as a whole is taking a test of political maturity, whether we are up to it at this moment or not. And on the 26th, life will go on and continue as it does today. My message is that everything stays calm, in a normal democratic atmosphere.”
Kamberi and Ljajic, each from his own angle, pointed to the same thing: the higher the turnout, the more votes a minority list needs for a seat. The RIK has yet to announce the final results.
