The ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) won 46.84% of votes in Sunday's early parliamentary election, while the opposition pro-European coalition "Serbia against violence" received 23.38%, the national election commission announced on Monday after processing ballots from 7,852 out of 8,273 polling stations.

Of 6,500,666 people entitled to vote, 58.84% cast their ballots. About 2.7% of the ballots were declared invalid.

Three other political groups crossed the election threshold of 3% – the Socialist Party of Serbia (6.59%), the conservative coalition “Hope for Serbia” (5.02%) and the recently formed group “We, the Voice of the People” (4.68%).

All other lists, except for ethnic minority parties to which the so-called natural threshold applies, failed to make it into the National Assembly. Among them are the People’s Party of Vuk Jeremic, a coalition led by the Social Democratic Party of Boris Tadic and the Radical Party of Vojislav Seselj.

In local elections in Belgrade, the Serbian Progressive Party won 38.7% of votes or 48 seats and the “Serbia against violence” alliance captured 34.7% or 43 seats, national television RTS reported, citing pollsters CeSID and Ipsos.

The “Hope for Serbia” coalition received 6% of votes or seven seats, “We, the Voice of the People” won 5.3% or six seats and the Socialist Party of Serbia 4.8% or six seats.

The opposition parties from the “Serbia against violence” coalition claimed electoral fraud favouring the government and called for a ballot recount.

They also demanded an annulment of the Belgrade City Assembly elections alleging election fraud and called for a protest on Monday evening.

The coalition said that more than 40,000 people who were not legal residents of the Serbian capital had been bussed in to vote by the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). Under Serbian law, Serbian nationals can only cast ballots in their registered place of residence.

They called for a protest in front of the City Assembly in central Belgrade at 6 pm on Monday followed by a march to the headquarters of the Republic Election Commission (RIK).

The SPN also demanded a review of the electoral rolls.