Serbia’s Vucic Extends Dominance With Presidency, Party Win

(Bloomberg) -- Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic won a second term in office and his ruling party won most votes in snap parliamentary elections, putting him on track to keep his coalition's decade-long grip on power.

Vucic secured 59% of the vote in the presidential contest, avoiding a second-round runoff ballot, according to official returns with 96% of votes counted. His Progressive Party-led bloc won about 43% of the vote, while a coalition of center-left opposition parties running as United for Serbia's Victory finished second, taking 13.6%.

Vucic and his party will be able to consolidate their dominance, which began a decade ago in the nation 7 million. A largely fragmented opposition has struggled to challenge the Progressive-led coalition and assailed Vucic for increasingly concentrating power into his hands.

“We have more than enough to form a government,” Vucic told supporters late Sunday in Belgrade. He can form a robust majority in the country's 250-seat legislature with his Socialist allies as well as representatives of ethnic minorities.

In neighboring Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban scored a crushing victory to clinch a fourth consecutive term, overcoming criticism about democratic backsliding, his lukewarm support for war-ravaged Ukraine and close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Vucic, 52, has struck a balanced position between Russia, a traditional Serbian ally, and the European Union, which has piled pressure on Belgrade to adopt its raft of sanctions targeting the Kremlin. Although Serbia condemned Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine in a United Nations resolution, Vucic has said it's not in the country's interest to join in with EU penalties.

Putin congratulated Vucic on his “convincing” victory, saying he hopes it will broaden the nations' strategic partnership, the Kremlin said. Leaders of France, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Bahrain also congratulated Vucic, his office said.

Serbia relies heavily on Russian gas imports -- its only refiner is a company controlled by Gazprom Neft. Vucic's government needs to negotiate a new, long-term gas supply contract in Moscow, with the current arrangement expiring in June.

“Serbia's friendly relations with Moscow means it is better placed than many Eastern European states to avoid a severe energy crisis, and the associated economic hit,” said Capucine May, research associate at risk intelligence firm Verisk Maplecroft.

Vucic reinforced his nation's stance, saying “military neutrality” had received enormous support among voters. “We won't join any military alliance,” he said after the ballot.

Ambivalence on Russia

The election campaign has been overshadowed by the war, though the opposition has failed to gain traction in a country with divided sympathies between Moscow and the European Union, which Serbia aspires to join. A poll last month showed that half of Serbs want their country to remain neutral, though of those to chose a side, more expressed a preference for Russia.

The invasion of Ukraine has also deflected Vucic's opponents' focus on corruption allegations in Serbia and environmental issues that rose to prominence after a wave of protests last year against pollution. The Progressives have replaced their initial campaign slogan highlighting economic achievements with “Peace. Security. Vucic.”

Once a hard-line nationalist in a party that called for a Greater Serbia during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, Vucic has moderated his views on his path to power. The president has stuck with Serbia's ambitions to join the EU and carried out economic reforms.

“Economic policy will remain focused on attracting foreign investment into large manufacturing and infrastructure facilities,” Teneo Intelligence said in a report on Monday. Continuity means “reluctance to impose sanctions on Russia, and slow reforms in tackling corruption and rule-of-law issues.”