Students set up 24-hour blockade in Belgrade over vote results

Hundreds of Serbian protesters, mostly students, gathered Friday in central Belgrade and blocked a key intersection in the capital to protest alleged electoral fraud.

It marked the first planned day-long blockade since the December 17 parliamentary and local elections in which President Aleksandar Vucic's party said it secured a commanding victory. Opposition groups have contested the results.

The main opposition coalition Serbia Against Violence alleged that ethnic-Serbian voters from neighbouring Bosnia had been allowed to cast ballots illegally in the capital.

International observers also reported irregularities while several Western nations voiced concern over the electoral process.

The students, organised within the Borba ("Fight") movement, are calling for the election results to be annulled and new votes held.

"In our country, literally for decades, no justice has been done regarding democratic processes," Jovana Kostadinov, a 19-year-old student at the Belgrade University Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Biology, told AFP.

"Now when I was finally entitled to vote, (my vote) was not respected and I feel hurt," she said.

"Who stole the elections?" activist Ivan Bijelic asked the protesting students, who replied chanting, "Thieves, thieves!"

Students, joined by other youngsters, erected tents and put sleeping bags at an improvised camp while some sat at the intersection close to government buildings.

"We will not allow you (Vucic) this," read one of the banners carried by the protesters.

"Euromaidan Serbia," read another one in a reference to the pro-European Union protest wave in Ukraine in 2014.

On Friday evening, the students were joined by several hundred protesters who had gathered earlier in front of the state electoral commission.

Once the blockade ends at midday Saturday, the protesters plan to join another demonstration later in the day led by a group of intellectuals, artists and celebrities who urged people to vote before the elections.

Vucic's right-wing Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) won roughly 46 percent of votes in the parliamentary elections, while the leading opposition coalition secured 23.5 percent, the official results show.

Since the elections, protesters have erected sporadic roadblocks in Belgrade.

The protests culminated on Sunday evening, when demonstrators tried to storm Belgrade city hall, with police pushing them back with pepper spray.

Demonstrators, more than 30 of whom were detained, used flagpoles, rocks and eggs to break the windows of the capital's administrative building and tried to break in.