DISINFO: The West trying to orchestrate an illegal seizure of power in Serbia
SUMMARY
The West is not ready to accept the election results in Serbia and the extent of popular support for President Aleksandar Vučić and is trying to orchestrate an illegal seizure of power.
RESPONSE
Recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative falsely frames the recent protests in Serbia as Western-backed, aiming to portray them as foreign-orchestrated destabilisation efforts. However, no evidence supports these allegations. The article presenting this claim neither offers a balanced perspective nor critically examines the assertion.
In reality, the protests in Serbia were sparked by reported electoral violations during the 17 December 2023 parliamentary and local elections. As the Guardian explains:
"Data released by the election commission on Wednesday showed President Aleksandar Vučić’s Serbian Progressive party (SNS) won 46.75% of the vote, while a pro-European opposition coalition, Serbia Against Violence, got 23.66%.
Serbia held the snap election, along with local elections, on 17 December 2023, but government critics said the vote was fraudulent – in particular in Belgrade, where opposition politicians argue they would have won the city assembly election in a fair race".
An international monitoring mission noted "the misuse of public resources, the lack of separation between the official functions and campaign activities, and intimidation and pressure on voters, including cases of vote buying".
Reinhold Lopatka, head of the OSCE observer mission said: “while the elections were technically well-organised, they unfolded in the midst of a socially and politically divided landscape. The decisive involvement of the President dominated the electoral process, and the use of his name by one of the candidate lists, together with bias in the media, contributed to an uneven playing field".
See similar cases: the West wants to destabilise Kazakhstan to open a second front against Russia; the West plans to destabilise Central Asia; that the US is preparing a Maidan in Georgia; Euromaidan was a foreign-sponsored violent coup; and Euromaidan was a coup by radicals.