Less than two years after the April 2022 election, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced on Wednesday, November 1, the dissolution of Parliament and called early elections for December 17. These elections will coincide with municipal elections in sixty-five cities, including the capital, Belgrade.

“We are living in a time when it is necessary for us all to be united in the fight for Serbia’s vital interests, where we will be under a lot of pressure, both because of our position on Kosovo and because of other regional and global issues,” Vucic said during a live television broadcast.

A former ultranationalist, Aleksandar Vucic has moved closer to the West while seeking to preserve his friendship with Moscow. Since becoming prime minister in 2014, Vucic has established himself as Serbia’s strongman. In 2017, he became President of the Republic. His detractors blame his “autocratic” governance and his control over media and public institutions.

In the presidential, legislative and municipal elections of April 2022, his political party, the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), won, with its coalition partners, 120 of the 250 seats in Parliament, and he was elected a second time to the post of president of the country. Two years earlier, in 2020, legislative and municipal elections were boycotted by most opposition parties.

EU Roadmap

The latter had been demanding these elections since the two killings which took place in May, in less than forty-eight hours, in a school in Belgrade and in villages near the Serbian capital, and which left a total of eighteen dead.

Part of the opposition bringing together several pro-European groups will appear united in this election, with the slogan of the weekly demonstrations organized in Belgrade since the two armed assaults: “Serbia against violence”. These are eight parties and movements of different political orientations: left, Greens, conservatives. Several right-wing and far-right parties have not yet decided whether they too will form a coalition before the election.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said during a visit to Belgrade on Tuesday that Serbia and Kosovo must step up efforts to normalize relations after the latest surge in violence, if they want to join the European Union. Serbia must also adhere to Western sanctions against Russia taken after it began invading Ukraine, root out corruption and organized crime, reform the economy, improve the justice system, the business climate and its record in matters of human rights.