1997 Serbian general election
General elections were held in the Yugoslav province of Serbia on 21 September 1997, to elect the president and members of the National Assembly. With no presidential candidate receiving over 50% of the vote in the first round, a second round was held on 5 October. Running on a platform of nationalism and neoliberal economic reforms, Vojislav Šešelj of the Serbian Radical Party received the most votes in the runoff. However, voter turnout was only 49%, below the required 50%. As a result, the elections were annulled, and fresh elections were scheduled for December.
In the National Assembly elections, the Socialist Party of Serbia–Yugoslav Left–New Democracy coalition emerged as the largest in the Assembly, winning 110 of the 250 seats.
The elections were boycotted by several major opposition parties, including the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party of Serbia and the Civic Alliance of Serbia, which claimed that the elections would not be held under fair conditions. Most Kosovo Albanians also boycotted the elections, who made up around 17% of the population, due to increasing ethnic tensions in Kosovo.