BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) 鈥 Serbia's 好色tv Assembly held a tense inaugural session on Tuesday as the ruling nationalists ignored widespread reports that parliamentary and municipal elections held in December were marred by vote rigging and numerous other irregularities.
As the session started, opposition lawmakers gathered around the speaker's stand, whistling, booing and holding signs that read 鈥淵ou Stole the Elections." Others held photos of populist with a caption that read 鈥淭he mafia boss.鈥
Supporters of the ruling Serbian Progressive party displayed a large banner denouncing the opposition.
Opposition lawmakers refused to take the oath together with the ruling party deputies, doing it in front of the main hall instead.
"I think the citizens could see that this is neither a normal parliament, nor was it built on the will of the citizens of Serbia, but on the theft of elections,鈥 said opposition lawmaker Borko Stefanovic.
President of the Serbian Progressive party Milos Vucevic accused the opposition of staging 鈥渁 performance鈥 which shows they are not patriots.
鈥淭hey cast a shadow on our country and our people,鈥 Vucevic said and added that the opposition "showed the citizens that for them there is no one homeland, one state.鈥
The in the 250-seat assembly in the Dec. 17 vote. The finished a distant second with 65 seats.
A vote-monitoring mission made up of representatives of international rights watchdogs said in a preliminary report issued after the parliamentary and municipal elections that they were 鈥渕arred by harsh rhetoric, bias in the media, pressure on public sector employees and misuse of public resources.鈥
Serious irregularities included alleged cases of vote-buying and ballot box stuffing, according to the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament.
The European Parliament is set to issue a declaration on the vote on Thursday. Opposition officials said the ruling party was in a hurry to hold the inaugural parliamentary session because the report is expected to include recommendations on next steps.
Vucic, who has been in power since 2012, has from opponents that his government curbed democratic freedoms while allowing corruption and organized crime to run rampant.
Under Vucic, Serbia is a candidate for EU membership, but the opposition accuses the bloc of turning a blind eye to the country鈥檚 democratic shortcomings in return for stability in the Balkan region, still troubled after the wars of the 1990s.
The election did not include a vote for the president, but governing authorities backed by the dominant pro-government media ran the campaign as a referendum on Vucic.
Serbia Against Violence, a pro-EU bloc, includes parties that were behind last year triggered by back-to-back mass shootings in May.
