“I will be president for only a couple of weeks, and then I will resign.” Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said this to a large pro-government rally in Belgrade, Reuters reported, and the exit he described will force early presidential and parliamentary elections.
Vucic is in his second and final term, which was due to finish in mid-2027. He gave no date for stepping down, nor for dissolving parliament, which the constitution requires before early parliamentary elections can be called.
He does not plan to leave politics. Vucic told the crowd he will help the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in the campaign, as long as the party wants him. He also suggested calling the electoral list “United Serbia” and said he would campaign under that name.
A timetable he had hinted at
The announcement fits what Vucic said on June 11, when he indicated he would resign eventually and that early elections would come within three to four months. He ruled out July and August then, arguing that the summer holidays are the wrong time for a national vote.
Energy security in the background
The transition arrives amid regional tension and pressure on Serbia’s energy infrastructure. In early April, Vucic said security forces using helicopters found explosives near a key gas facility in the municipality of Kanjiza, the site that links Serbia’s gas network to Hungary. Authorities recovered two large packages of explosives fitted with detonators.
“If there had been a gas shutdown there, Hungary would have no gas, and we in northern Serbia would not have gas either,” Vucic said afterward. He tied the attempted sabotage to “geopolitical games” and called for maximum combat readiness.
Energy supply has been a worry for Belgrade since the war in Ukraine disrupted international markets. Serbia relies heavily on the TurkStream pipeline, which carries Russian natural gas across the Black Sea, and both Hungary and Russia have previously claimed that Ukraine could target it. Earlier this year, Vucic also floated selling the NIS oil company to Hungary’s MOL as a way around Western sanctions on Russian-owned assets.
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