Serbians voted for a new president on Sunday, with conservative Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic the runaway favourite despite opposition warnings about the extent of his domination over the Balkan country.
Most polls see Vucic, 47, winning in the first round with more than 50 per cent of the vote, trailed in the low teens by a former rights advocate and a white-suited student whose satirical portrayal of a sleazy political fraudster has struck a chord with some disillusioned voters.
The role of president is largely ceremonial, but Vucic is expected to retain real power through his control of Serbia's ruling Progressive Party.
As such, the election is unlikely to alter the country's delicate balancing act between the European Union, which Vucic wants Serbia to join, and Russia, with which Serbs share their Orthodox Christian faith and Slavic heritage.
To his supporters, Vucic is a cool head and a firm hand in a troubled region.
"I voted for stability, we've had enough wars," said Bozica Ivanovic, a 65-year-old pensioner who voted for Vucic. "We need more jobs for younger people and if we can get higher pensions and salaries, even better."
Vucic's opponents, however, say he has an authoritarian streak that has led him to take control over the media in Serbia since his party rose to power in 2012, and he became prime minister three years ago.
He denies the charge, but has struggled to shake it given his record when last in government in the dying days of Yugoslavia.
Then in his late 20s, Vucic was Serbia's feared information minister behind draconian legislation designed to muzzle criticism of the government during the 1998-99 Kosovo war.
"We want above all to give back dignity to Serbian citizens and meaning to state institutions," said Sasa Jankovic, Serbia's former human rights ombudsman who was polling a distant second or third before Sunday's vote.
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