Serbian Prosecutors Ask Police to Check Vote-Buying Complaint at Repeat Poll

BELGRADE, 6 November 2026 — Prosecutors in southern Serbia have asked police to gather information about a complaint alleging vote buying during the November 1 repeat parliamentary vote in Aleksinac, according to accounts of an official statement released by the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Niš on November 4. The action is a request to examine allegations, not a finding that a crime occurred.

The Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office in Aleksinac opened a case on November 2 after receiving a complaint concerning polling station 74 in the village of Glogovica. The case file was sent to the Niš office’s special anti-corruption division. According to local reporting by Rešetka and Medijska kutija, the Niš prosecutor requested information from the criminal police’s anti-corruption service to determine whether there was evidence of offering or accepting a benefit in connection with voting under Article 156 of Serbia’s Criminal Code.

The complaint and online discussion concerned the minority electoral list led by Usame Zukorlić, the Movement for Unification, which prosecutors said received 53 votes at the polling station during the repeat vote. That reported vote total is context for the inquiry, not evidence that the votes were purchased. No person has been identified in the cited prosecutor accounts as convicted of or formally charged with buying votes in this matter.

Election-monitoring group CRTA said its observers had recorded individual allegations of vote buying, parallel voter lists and the presence of third parties at some repeat-vote polling places. These observations warrant checking, but an observer’s report of an allegation does not establish criminal liability or invalidate a ballot by itself.

The party has disputed the suggestion of wrongdoing. In a written response to BBC News Serbian, republished by Novi Sad outlet 021, SPP vice-president Edin Numanović said the party learned of the allegations through the media, said any member involved would face sanctions and maintained that votes from Aleksinac were not decisive for the party’s parliamentary mandate. He attributed the party’s improved performance to campaign activity by its local and national organisations. Those explanations are the party’s position, not an independent determination of what happened at the polling station.

The complaint comes after the Republic Electoral Commission certified Serbia’s final parliamentary results on November 5. The student-led list won 140 of 250 seats, the Vučić coalition 103, and five minority lists seven. Zukorlić’s list secured one seat. The election commission’s certification and the prosecutor’s evidence-gathering request are different institutional actions; neither should be misrepresented as a court judgment about the complaint.

Material follow-up requires the original prosecutor’s written notice, police findings, any formal charges or dismissal, the relevant polling-station records and any response to new evidence. Until then, the verified development is the official decision to seek information about a complaint, not proof of vote buying, manipulation of the national result or wrongdoing by the named party.