Claims of falsification of the election results must be legally investigated
Election headquarters of presidential candidate Sasa Jankovic stated on Saturday that they have doubts about the regularity of presidential election since they have evidence that the Republic Election Committee (REC) “gave” more votes to President-elect Aleksandar Vucic than he actually won.
Sasa Jankovic’s team stated that, by random sample of 25 polling stations, they discovered that the REC “gave” 964 more votes to the President-elect and current Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic. Jankovic’s election headquarters noted numerous irregularities in those 25 polling stations, including the falsified records.
“With simple calculation, we have found that in 25 polling stations, PM Aleksandar Vucic got 964 additional votes that he did not win in the election. That means that he “got” 38 additional votes per polling station. If we multiply those votes by the total of 8,396 polling stations in Serbia, it means that Aleksandar Vucic potentially stole 319,000 votes,” Jankovic’s team stated on their website. They also posted certain documents to prove their claim. According to the REC, 6,724,949 citizens in Serbia had the right to vote in presidential election, and 3,349,756 of them voted. According to the REC, PM and President-elect Aleksandar Vucic won 55 percent of popular vote.
Zoran Lucic, Professor of mathematics at Belgrade University who has researched elections in Serbia for decades, told Insajder that it is necessary to check if the voters list was falsified and to determine whose responsibility that is. Lucic also said that the authorities need to investigate the claims about fraud, or else public trust in the election process will be lost.
He also said that the claims made by Jankovic’s team are insignificant unless they have a proof to support those claims.
“As I understood, they claim that PM Vucic did not get as many votes as written in the records. That means that someone falsified the records, not that the additional ballots were put in the ballot boxes. According to Jankovic’s team, those responsible for regularity of election process at the polling stations were not interested in the content of ballot boxes but in the records only. They were only concerned about making the records that are in favor of PM Vucic, despite the fact that the numbers did not fit,” he said.
Lucic added it is crucial that the authorities react and determine whether there were any irregularities. If the authorities do not react, the state is in jeopardy.
“Those held accountable must be prosecuted. If not, it would mean that no one is protecting the rule of law in Serbia. If the results of the election are fabricated, it would mean that we do not need the elections. Fabrication of the records must be prosecuted, no matter the election results,” concluded Lucic.
“If the records in some polling stations were falsified, it is necessary to check the records from all polling stations in Serbia.”
Serbian PM and President-elect Aleksandar Vucic said on Sunday that he will “ask the REC to count all the ballots in front of the cameras.”
When asked to comment the allegations by Jankovic’s team, PM Vucic briefly said the allegations are “notorious nonsense.”
He concluded by saying that he never stole anything in his life, and that the mathematic used by Jankovic’s team is not used even in elementary schools.
Irena Stevic