“We will win more convincingly than ever before,” Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told thousands of supporters in downtown Belgrade on Saturday, June 27. He told them this was probably the last time he would address them as the country’s president.
The reason: he plans to quit within weeks. “I will be president for several weeks more and then I will submit my resignation,” he said, according to the Associated Press. He gave no date for the resignation or for an election, whether for Parliament or for a new president. Both regular votes are due next year anyway.
Vucic is serving his second term, and Serbian election law bars him from running for president again. He has said in the past that he could leave the post, and speculation has swirled that he wants to switch to prime minister, the formally more powerful job. He did say he would help his right-wing Serbian Progressive Party in the coming elections.
Pressure from the street
The announcement follows youth-led protests that have shaken his grip on power. University students have demanded early parliamentary elections for more than a year, and until now Vucic has declined to set a date.
The protests grew out of a train station accident in the north of the country in November 2024, which killed 16 people. Demonstrators blamed the collapse of a concrete canopy at the Novi Sad railway station on negligence driven by corruption in large state infrastructure projects. Months of mass protests demanded accountability.
Vucic’s party took over the Serbian government 14 years ago, and he has tightened his hold gradually since. He has pushed hard against the protesters. Hundreds of people have been detained, and police were accused of excessive force and arbitrary arrests. The European Union has criticised what it calls democratic backsliding in Serbia, including a clampdown on the media.
