Belgraders assembled on Monday evening in downtown Belgrade at a protest called by the Serbia Against Violence coalition. Following speeches delivered outside the Belgrade City Assembly building, the protesters marched to the Republic Election Commission (RIK) to present proof of electoral irregularities in Belgrade.

Miroslav Aleksic and Marinika Tepic of the Serbia Against Violence coalition said they are going on a hunger strike until the Belgrade local elections are annulled.

“We do not want to and must not recognize the Belgrade elections because, in violation of the law, they were abused by people from other countries,” said Tepic, stressing that the Serbia Against Violence coalition has ample evidence.

Aleksic, one of the people heading the coalition’s election ticket, asked the assembled people “not to allow the holding of the RIK session” scheduled for 9 pm Monday.

Protesters managed to break through the protective fence put up outside the RIK building, and a minor incident between the protesters and the security guards was reported.

Aleksic said he and Tepic went inside the RIK building and submitted their demands for the annulment of the Belgrade elections.

“We submitted all our objections, evidence, recordings and everything that the RIK needs to see, the conditions in which the elections were held yesterday and the brutal electoral fraud at the polling stations, how people were brought in to vote. The RIK head could not answer any of our questions, including that of how it is possible for a minister from Bosnia and Herzegovina to vote in Belgrade, under what law. They were silent, they looked at one another, took all the materials, said it was not within their jurisdiction, but they entered everything and will forward our demands,” said Aleksic.

He added that, as MPs, they will stay inside the RIK building until the elections are annulled or until they receive the information that they will be annulled.

“We are staying in the RIK building,” Tepic told N1, adding they believe that a hunger strike is the only way to make a sacrifice and defend the will of the people which was altered by electoral fraud. “You have the ODIHR and CRTA reports that point to this,” she said.

Dragan Djilas, leader of the Party of Freedom and Justice, which is a member of the Serbia Against Violence coalition, said Tepic and Aleksic’s decision to start a hunger strike “is very difficult and a sacrifice.”

He said many people assembled outside the RIK because “they don’t accept what happened yesterday.”

“First of all in Belgrade, though the situation was the same across Serbia. The only difference being that, in Belgrade, voters were brought over from Republika Srpska, but also from central Serbia. We said that, everyone could see the ballots, according to CRTA reports, they directly influenced the altering of the Belgraders’ electoral will,” said Djilas, adding that all of this has been documented.

“You recorded all those events at the Belgrade Arena yesterday, you saw that the Bosnia and Herzegovina Internal Affairs Minister voted in local elections in Belgrade, how is he a minister if he resides in a different country? Unfortunately, there were dozens of thousands of such people in Belgrade alone,” said Djilas.