Serbian PM Aleksandar Vucic elected president

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Vucic avoided a run-off by winning 55 percent of the vote on Sunday, according to the Ipsos polling group - the first presidential candidate in 25 years to do so.

Mr Vucic was a member of the national assembly at the time, and famously said "you kill one Serb and we will kill 100 Muslims" just days after the massacre. Some 6.7 million people were eligible to vote in Serbia, RIA reported, adding that those voters include people living overseas and in Kosovo and Metohija, with OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) representatives having monitored the election process in the region.

"I am thrilled with the way things are going on right now", Dzehva Trikic, 76-year old pensioner, told AFP after casting her ballot. The result marks a political humiliation for Serbia's beleaguered opposition parties, which say Vucic's rule is increasingly autocratic. Seven million people in the EU-candidate nation were eligible.

"As the two leaders, who were elected during their tenure as prime ministers, I fully believe we will work together to further strengthen our current friendly relations and cooperation, especially in economy", the Turkish president has been quoted as saying.

Then in his late 20s, Mr. Vucic was Serbia's feared information minister behind draconian legislation created to muzzle criticism of the government during the 1998-99 Kosovo war.

But his past has followed him nonetheless.

"For me it is important this election demonstrated that a large majority of Serbian citizens favours the continuation of the European parh while maintaining close ties with China and Russian Federation", he told cheering supporters.

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"Vucic also expects to be the president who will lead Serbia into the European Union, which is a plausible hypothesis around 2022" when his mandate will expire, Loic Tregoures, a Balkans specialist, said in an analysis published by The Conversation website.

Speaking to supporters at his party's headquarters, Mr. Vucic said, "My victory is crystal clear".

"The first-round round victory gives Vucic a huge impetus for a shift toward a more authoritarian style", said Bosko Jaksic, an independent foreign policy analyst at the New Policy Center in Belgrade.

Russian Federation is a close ally of Serbia and does not recognise Kosovo's 2008 unilateral declaration independence, recognised by more than 100 countries.

But after his win Serbia's divided opposition seemed weak.

Vucic, a former ultranationalist who claims to be a pro-EU reformer, said Tuesday he has nothing against the protests, "as long as they are peaceful".

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