Nongovernmental organisations in Vojvodina that have been outspoken in their opposition to the adoption of the new constitution, on Monday congratulated the province's residents on what they said was a successful boycott of the referendum. The NGOs criticise the new constitution, that should replace the 1990 constitution, for including a humiliating definition of the autonomy of Vojvodina
The chairman of the Vojvodina assembly, Bojan Kostres, accused parties that were in favour of the document of having forcefully imposed the constitution.
He said the fact that the document was not tabled in the public and the fact that it was approved at a referendum, the regularity of which was questionable, bore witness to democratic processes being undermined in Serbia.
Doubts in the referendum's regularity arose with a sudden rise in the number of citizens going to the polling stations in the final hours of the referendum.
Ethnic minorities also were reserved towards the document given that it gave great promises about the minorities' position but fails to guarantee that the promises will be kept.
The European Union on Monday dismissed references to Belgrade's sovereignty over the breakaway province of Kosovo contained in the new Serbian constitution voted for over the weekend.
According to foreign news agencies, the European Commission said on Monday Serbia's adoption of a constitution declaring Kosovo an integral part of the country was contradictory because most of the breakaway province's people were not on the voting lists.
Commission spokeswoman Krisztina Nagy was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying that she "welcomed provisional results showing the charter replacing a constitution from the era of former strongman Slobodan Milosevic had been adopted".
She said "the European Union had urged Belgrade to revise its constitution in line with European standards and the Commission would give its assessment of the text in its next regular progress report on Nov. 8.
Nagy said Kosovo's future status was a separate matter subject to a negotiating process being conducted by United Nations mediator Martti Ahtisaari.
According to Reuters, EU officials said "Brussels regarded the constitution as a step towards greater democracy and modernisation but it had some concerns about the independence of the judiciary under the new basic law, which would be spelled out in next week's report".
Preliminary results of the two-day referendum on Serbia's new constitution show that 51.4 percent of citizens backed the draft, the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID) reported on Sunday evening, an hour and a half after the polls closed down.
The nongovernmental organisation observing elections in Serbia said the final results of the referendum cannot be different by more than one percent from the preliminary results.
The pollsters said that a total of 3,552,721 voters or 53.5 percent of the electorate of 6.6 million, went to the polls of whom 3,427,905 gave a yes vote to the new constitution, a document of 206 articles and a preamble reaffirming Serbian sovereignty over the breakaway province of Kosovo.