With Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic’s decisive victory in the presidential election on April 2, Serbia has edged closer to autocracy. Though the presidency is largely ceremonial, Mr. Vucic can now handpick his successor as prime minister and consolidate his power, since Parliament and the judiciary are all but locked up by Mr. Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party. Having severely curtailed press freedom and marginalized political opposition, his concentration of power bodes ill for Serbian democracy.

Serbia’s president-elect on his critics, Merkel and the outlook for the region.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić sat down with POLITICO on Wednesday for his first extensive interview since winning his country’s presidential election in a landslide.

During the election campaign Kosovo was not much of a topic for the presidential candidates in Serbia. Some have visited Kosovo but without much fanfare, and the winner although he announced his Leposavić's election rally, dropped out of the visit.

According to the head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Đurić, Vučić has won the votes of 80 per cent of voters who on Sunday went to the polls.

Deputy SNS Marko Đurić said that from so far processed causes the current Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić has won 80 per cent of votes at polling stations in Kosovo.

Đurić says that Vučić won nearly 33 000 votes, adding that it is 10 per cent more than in the previous parliamentary elections.

Political analysts said Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic’s presidential election victory gives him almost unassailable power and means the opposition must change its strategy.

Analysts giving instant reactions to Vucic’s first-round poll win on Sunday suggested that his triumph puts the Progressive Party leader in an unprecedentedly strong position to take the country in his chosen direction for the next five years.

Political analyst Cvijetin Milivojević and editor of daily Danas Dragoljub Draža Petrović estimate that opposition candidates in the presidential election have not done enough to fight for fair electoral conditions. Whoever thought that would beat Vučić in such circumstances was or naive or was joking, said Milivojević.

Petrović said that these elections looked like "Vučić's easy morning run." He believes that in these conditions the opposition should boycott and not to spread false hope that did not exist.

Votes from Kosovo arrived to Vranje and Raška this morning around 1.30, RTS reported.

As previously announced by the OSCE in Kosovo, there were no security conditions for the counting of votes at polling stations, so they have transported ballots to Vranje and Raška following the Instructions on the implementation of the presidential elections within that territory.

SNS leader and Serbian PM Aleksandar Vucic has declared his victory in the presidential elections held in Serbia on Sunday, April 2.

The Republic Electoral Commission (RIK) announced on Monday that based on 90.86 percent of electoral material, Vucic won 55.09 percent of the vote.

He is followed by Sasa Jankovic (16.26 percent), Luka Maksimovic (9.04), Vuk Jeremic (5.33), and Vojislav Seselj (4.47), RTS is reporting.

The head of the OSCE in Kosovo, Jan Braathu, said in a visit to the north of Kosovo that the OSCE is pleased with the way the Serbian presidential elections are going. “A lot of people have come out to vote and if it continues like this, we will be very happy. The OSCE staff are in charge of every phase of this process. I’ve spoken to my colleagues outside and they tell me that things are going smoothly,” Braathu told the media outside one of the polling stations in the north.

Vetevendosje MP, Rexhep Selimi, said that the government of Kosovo is accessory to Serbia in undermining sovereignty of Kosovo. He said the situation whereby Kosovo ministers and MPs vote in Serbian presidential elections today is “intolerable”.