Aleksandar Vučić during 2022 election night
Photo: FoNet
Since coming to power in 2012, Aleksadar Vučić has called four early parliamentary elections. Neither one was triggered by the collapse of the ruling majority in the parliament. Instead, they were based on strategic decisions.
In 2014, the goal of the early election was for Vučić to capitalize on his skyrocketing popularity, after he had launched an ultimately short-lived anti-corruption campaign. This election established him as the undisputed leader on the political scene of Serbia, the position he has held ever since.
In 2016, the goal of the early election was to boost the results of the ruling party in that year’s local and provincial elections. The simultaneous elections on all levels shifted the focus of the campaign to national issues, which enabled the ruling SNS to score even more convincing victories than it otherwise, probably, would have been the case.
In 2022, the goal of the early election was for the opposition to return to the parliament following the boycott of the 2020 election. Serbia found itself in an extremely awkward position of being the only European country, with the exception of Belarus, not to have even nominal opposition in the parliament, which even the ruling parties found unsustainable.
In 2023, the goal of the early election… is not quite clear, not even a month after the elections were announced. Vučić’s ability to call early elections to further his interests has never been in doubt. But what interests specifically are being furthered by calling elections for December? This is a question that is still lacking a definitive answer.
How expectations were defied
With the regular local and provincial elections coming in June 2024, most of the observers expected that Vučić will repeat what he did in 2016 – call early elections to help local SNS re-election efforts, some of which, especially in large cities, are now expected to be a struggle. The President gave a hint that this would be the case last summer when he made clear that the third cabinet of Prime Minister Ana Brnabić would not last the full four-year term.
For sure, there has been talk of possible elections even earlier. Especially after massive protests broke out in May 2023, following the tragic mass shootings, Vučić started mentioning several possible dates for early elections – September 2023, December 2023, March 2024…
“Serbia Against Violence” protests, May 2023
Photo: FoNet/Ana Paunkovic
Most of the observers, however, thought that this was a bluff, intended to shift the opposition’s focus away from the protests. As the number of citizens participating in the protests slowly decreased over the summer, it seemed that Vučić’s position was relatively stable and that the originally assumed plan – early parliamentary and regular local elections in June 2024 – would be the course of action. Why bother calling the elections earlier when you would have to trigger early local and provincial elections, something that not even Vučić had done in the past?
But then, at the end of September, a couple of days after the Banjska attack in Kosovo, this exact scenario was put in motion – across the country, SNS mayors started resigning, paving the way for early elections on all three levels. The June 2024 scenario seemed to have been rescheduled for December 2023.
It turned out, however, that not all local elections have been called for December 2023, but only about half of them, while the other half was left for their original date, in June. The reasons for this decision and its implications will be discussed in the next article. Let us now turn to the possible explanations of why Serbia is having elections in December at all.
Kosovo or the economy?
According to one interpretation, the reason why Vučić decided to go for early elections in December 2023 rather than June 2024 is because of Kosovo. With this move, he will be able to postpone the implementation of the Brussels/Ohrid agreement reached earlier this year at least until the spring of 2024, when the new Government of Serbia should be formed following the December elections.
This timeframe will neatly coincide with the elections for the European Parliament and the long process of formation of EU institutions, which will also be followed by the US Presidential election. In other words, any concessions in the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue might have been postponed until 2025.
The timing of the decision is also significant because it came exactly after the Banjska attack. Perhaps Vučić assessed that, due to the attack, his position was now more vulnerable and called early elections to avoid immediate pressures.
Both of these explanations are based on the assumption that significant pressures on Vučić to deliver on the de facto recognition were indeed planned in the coming months. Before the elections were called, and especially before the Banjska attack, no particular signs that this was happening were visible, which is the most serious flaw of this interpretation. But, perhaps Vučić decided to go with the elections just to have a convincing excuse for the Western capitals. Or, perhaps, there is more to their current policy towards him than meets the eye.
Vučić and Kurti in Brussels, September 2023
Photo: X / @JosepBorrellF
Another explanation has more to do with the domestic situation. With the rising cost of living, fuel and food prices, as well as the traumatic events of May, according to this interpretation, the support for SNS is on a downward trend and is expected to get worse. Some signs of this, though not entirely convincing, have been visible in the scarce polls published in recent months. In this scenario, Vučić decided to go for elections sooner rather than later, while he could still achieve convincing victories.
This interpretation, too, lacks decisive evidence, as the support for SNS, while perhaps a bit lower than in April 2022, does not appear to be anywhere near a freefall. Inflation is slowly reducing the buying power of the population, but it is not nearly as bad as in Turkey, where it was also not enough to topple President Erdoğan. There are also no mass layoffs which significantly reduced the support for the ruling DS back in 2012, which enabled Vučić to rise to power in the first place. In other words, nothing dramatic is happening, at least nothing that would serve as an obvious explanation of why December was selected, and not June.
Both interpretations, therefore, still lack evidence. Maybe it was a combination of both factors or a third factor everybody has missed? And maybe the evidence for one of them, especially the Kosovo interpretation, is yet to emerge? Since both interpretations are based on what could potentially happen in the future, after December, only the future can, apparently, give us an answer.
For now, we can only conclude that the control of the ruling party over the electoral calendar has reached the level so high, that it can now call early elections to further its interests based on subtleties that are not even entirely visible to the general public. And that, of course, is bad news for the democratic institutions in Serbia.
