Several hundred people gathered on December 26 in Belgrade for another protest organized by the opposition to demand the cancellation of elections held earlier this month.
It was the ninth day of protests by the Serbia Against Violence coalition since parliamentary and local elections on December 17 in which the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) of President Aleksandar Vucic declared victory at all levels.
The Serbia Against Violence coalition accuses the SNS of election fraud, which the party and the state leadership deny.
"We will not recognize the theft, and the electoral will of the citizens will be defended," Vladimir Obradovic, the Serbia Against Violence coalition’s candidate for mayor of Belgrade, said during the protest on December 26.
As Obradovic spoke the protest continued in front of the Palace of Justice, where the Belgrade courts and the Prosecutor-General’s Office are located. The protesters demanded the release of all people arrested after a protest on December 24, saying they were being held unjustly.
Almost 40 demonstrators were arrested after incidents following that protest, which was the first to turn violent. Police officers inside the assembly building prevented some people from entering, using tear gas and pepper spray after windows of the building were broken. The police said eight officers were injured.
The Serbia Against Violence coalition said the incidents were carried out by "hooligans sent by the government."
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Separately, Marinika Tepic, a leading figure in Serbia's main opposition party, vowed to press on with a hunger strike to protest election fraud.
Tepic, who went on hunger strike along with five colleagues following the vote, was placed on intravenous drips following a deterioration in her health on December 25. She told Reuters in an interview that she planned to reject further medical advice to end her protest.
"They will probably ask me to stop the hunger strike and I will ask them to help this struggle to continue," Tepic said. "This is the struggle for our freedom."
Tepic echoed the claims of the opposition accusing authorities of including dead people on voter lists and bringing in ethnic Serbs from Bosnia-Herzegovina and other former Yugoslav republics to vote in Belgrade, thus handing victory to the SNS.
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The electoral commission announced on December 24 that it determined following a check of voter lists that the claims were “not true.”
Vucic has denied allegations by domestic nongovernmental organizations, foreign observers, and opposition figures of electoral irregularities. He said the vote took place in a democratic atmosphere and was "the most peaceful ever in modern history."
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and other international observers denounced what they called a series of "irregularities" in the voting. Domestic nongovernmental election-monitoring groups also alleged irregularities following the vote.
The U.S. State Department has called on the authorities in Serbia to cooperate with the OSCE mission in investigating allegations of electoral irregularities.