Croatia Rejects Serbian Accusation of Election Interference

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic in Brussels, 15 October 2026. Picture: EPA/OLIVIER MATTHYS.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic on Thursday dismissed a diplomatic demonstration note from Belgrade declaring disturbance in the Serbian parliamentary election as “total rubbish. “

” It is outright rubbish to recommend that Croatia, probably functioning as both an external and an internal opponent, is interfering in the political procedure and the election race in Serbia,” Plenkovic stated.

Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia’s outbound president and the lead prospect on the “United Serbia” list, stated that no nation had actually ever interfered in another nation’s elections as thoroughly as Croatia had actually carried out in Serbia’s upcoming parliamentary elections, Serbian news firm Tanjug reported on Thursday.

Vucic invited the Serbian Foreign Ministry’s choice to send out Croatia a demonstration note, including that it needs to have been done “maybe a thousand times by now.

“It is necessary to leave a record that we knew that Croatia was interfering in our electoral procedure in the most obvious method. We have actually provided a demonstration note,” Vucic stated.

Serbian public broadcaster Radio-Television Serbia stated the note mentioned that efforts to affect Serbia’s electoral procedures were undesirable, as were different elements of Croatian media protection of Serbia’s political circumstance.

“This story has actually been promoted rather a long time. When it comes to the demonstrations relating to protection by Croatian media, I do not understand what more there is to include. As far as I remember, our media are complimentary– individuals compose what they desire,” Plenkovic reacted.

“Croatia does not interfere in such matters, nor is this a concern that worries us. There are basic worths on which Serbia requires to make development rather than sending us outrageous notes,” Plenkovic included.

“Unfortunately, we keep in mind Aleksandar Vucic’s function in the [1990s military] aggressiveness versus Croatia, and 35 years later on, we are experiencing the exact same rhetoric. This reveals there has actually been no development towards normalising relations in Serbia,” stated Tomo Medved, Croatia’s Minister for Veterans and a member of the judgment Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, on Thursday.

Josko Klisovic, of the opposition Social Democratic Party, explained the note as “totally groundless and diplomatically misdirected.

“Croatia does not interfere in Serbia’s election project. It appears that Aleksandar Vucic desires to drag Croatia into it,” Klisovic stated, including that the objective was clear: “Vucic desires to mobilise his electorate to turn out in the biggest possible numbers and give him another term.

“I hope the residents of Serbia will acknowledge this adjustment by Vucic and head to the surveys with the truth of their present lives, and the lives they want to lead in the future, in mind,” Klisovic stated.

Marijana Puljak, an MP from the Center Party, stated the disagreement revealed Vucic’s anxiousness which the opposition trainee motion in Serbia was putting him under pressure, triggering him to search for perpetrators all over.

Parliamentary elections in Serbia are set up for October 25 with the Student List viewed as the primary challenger for Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party.