site.btaSerbian Progressive Party Chair Vucevic Says Serbia Faces Presidential, Parliamentary Elections in Autumn

Presidential and parliamentary elections will be held in Serbia in the autumn, Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) Chair Milos Vucevic said on Friday.

The SNS said on its website that Vucevic added the party had not discussed possible candidates for the country’s president.

“There is no doubt that we are facing parliamentary and presidential elections,” Vucevic said. “I do not know whether they will take place at the same time or separately, but since the President has said he will resign in a few weeks, that means we are also facing presidential elections,” Vucevic said in an interview with the weekly Kompas, published on the SNS website.

Vucevic said the elections were expected in September, October or November, because this was the timeframe in which citizens could go to the polls and elect both a new parliament and the president of the republic.

Vucevic, who resigned as prime minister at the end of January 2025 under pressure from student protests in Serbia, said the upcoming elections would probably be the most difficult for the SNS since 2012.

“I hope we will stand in one column with Vucic and be a united team. We see him as a leader and as someone who can head the SNS electoral list in the parliamentary elections,” Vucevic said.

On June 27, at an event dedicated to Vidovdan, a Christian holiday of major significance for Serbs marked on June 28, President Aleksandar Vucic told supporters that he would be president for only a few more weeks and that, if the SNS asked him, he would help the party regain citizens’ trust in the elections.

At the time, however, Vucic, who alone has the power to call parliamentary elections, did not give a date for a possible vote.

Vucic’s comments fuelled speculation that after resigning as president, he could head the SNS list in the parliamentary elections and then take over as prime minister, regional broadcaster N1 noted.

On Thursday, Vucevic said he expected Vucic not only to head the SNS list in the elections for the next parliament, but also to become Serbia’s next prime minister.

Analysts see Vucic’s move as a way to preserve a dominant political role, while the opposition views it as a political manoeuvre after months of political crisis and protests in Serbia, N1 said.

Vucic has faced mass anti-government protests since November 2024, which began after the tragedy in Novi Sad, where 16 people died on November 1, 2024 when the concrete canopy of the recently renovated railway station collapsed. The student movement leading the protests accuses the government of corruption and is demanding early elections.