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Shkruar nga Markus Kaiser
Vucic resigns as president, but not from power
Over the weekend, Aleksandar Vučić announced that he will resign as President of Serbia. Anyone who thinks he is bowing to the pressure of the protests and stepping down from power simply doesn't know Aleksandar Vučić well.
According to its Constitution, Serbia is a parliamentary democracy. Apart from ceremonial duties, the President has few powers: he is authorized to appoint, promote and dismiss military officers, dissolve Parliament and call elections. The President's role is essentially ceremonial.
However, this has nothing to do with reality in Serbia: here, Aleksandar Vučić decides everything. As president, he attends cabinet meetings and tells the government which laws to pass. He sets foreign policy, oversees economic policy, inaugurates sections of highways and tells the citizens of Serbia what to think – sometimes even explaining the weather. By the end of May, Vučić had appeared live on television 167 times, with an average duration of about 30 minutes per appearance. All power is concentrated in the office of the President, while his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) has made the state its prey.
Since the collapse of a train station shelter in Novi Sad, Serbia's second-largest city, in November 2024, which killed 16 people, large sections of the population have been protesting against the ruling party's takeover of the state and the corruption associated with it. They are demanding that institutions fulfill their constitutional mandate. For the first time, Aleksandar Vučić is facing a movement that could pose a threat to him and his power.
Vučić is leaving the presidency, but not politics.
Furthermore, Vučić faces another problem: as president, he cannot run for re-election after two terms in office. To stay in power, he will have to return to the post of prime minister, a position he previously held from 2014 to 2017. His nine years as president were characterized by party capture of the state, ties between government members and organized crime, weakening media freedom, and obstacles to Serbia's integration process into the European Union. It is no wonder that, as president, he maintained excellent relations with Viktor Orbán.
At a large party rally on Saturday, which he attended in his capacity as President, he announced that he would resign from the presidency "within the coming weeks." This leaves all options open: after resigning as President, he could theoretically become Prime Minister even without early elections, as the governing majority in parliament could appoint him to the post.
Another option would be for Vučić to call general elections and head the SNS list himself. As president, he can call them with just 40 days' notice. In the past, this has allowed his party to enter the election campaign on the most favorable terms possible, while all of his opponents have been caught off guard by the election date.
The risk remains incalculable.
This time, however, the SNS and Aleksandar Vučić face a new situation: the student movement, which has been organizing the protests for the past year and a half, has announced that it will present its technocratic list in the elections. And for the first time in his rule, which has now lasted a decade and a half, Vučić is reluctant to call early elections. While in the past he has used the elections to renew his and the SNS's legitimacy, this time the party is not sure that it can win the parliamentary elections, which are widely considered not fully free, despite the influence it wields.
But time is running out: the presidential term ends in April 2027. To avoid finding himself in an unmanageable situation just before the end of his term, Vučić must take the post of Prime Minister early. And for the first time, his nationalist movement is being challenged by an equally strong movement that aims to end the unconstitutional behavior of the last fifteen years. Almost every man and woman in Serbia is convinced that the process will be tough. / Adapted from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom
*Markus Kaiser is project director for the Western Balkans at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom. He lives in Belgrade.
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