Will there be a change of power in Belgrade?

In April 2022, the ruling coalition in Belgrade composed of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and the Socialist Party (SPS) secured a minimal majority of 56 out of 110 seats in the local assembly. A year and a half later, citizens of Belgrade will once again elect the local parliament, which in turn elects the city’s mayor.

Ever since polls closed in April last year, opposition parties started pointing out that the entire opposition – which ran on seven different lists – won around 500,000 votes, while the ruling parties won around 430,000 votes. Demands for a snap Belgrade election had consistently been made by opposition until it was finally called for 17 December.

Why exactly the ruling party agreed to this, with the term of the recently dissolved local assembly expiring in 2026, remains unclear, as are the reasons for calling snap parliamentary elections.

One of the explanations may be that it was assessed that this is the last window of opportunity for SNS to win another four-year term in Belgrade, amid a downward trend of its support. The party has been running the city since 2014.

Whatever the reason, the opposition got the rematch it was asking for. What are its current chances of victory in the capital?

With a lack of recent polls in Belgrade, especially those including newly-formed coalitions, last year’s results can serve as an indicator instead.

In 2022, SNS list won 38.02% of the vote, while SPS won 6.99%. The ruling coalition, therefore, won almost exactly 45% of the vote.

The parties have already submitted lists for the city assembly, with one difference – this time, SNS is running in a coalition with the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party, which last time won 1.6% of the vote.

The largest opposition coalition, United for the Victory of Belgrade, composed of the centre-left and centre-right parties, won 21.32%. Green-left Moramo (“We must”) coalition, centred around the “Do Not Let Belgrade D(r)own” movement, won 10.81%.

The parties that were members of these two coalitions have now united in a single, “Serbia Against Violence” list, whose combined result in the previous election was, therefore, 32.13%.

These parties represent the pro-EU opposition part of the electorate. Last year, there was another list that campaigned for the votes of these citizens, led by the SDS party of former President of Serbia Boris Tadić. The list won 2.86% of the vote, barely missing out on the 3% threshold.

Tadić is once again running separately from the pro-EU opposition, following their failure to negotiate an agreement. However, this time, he has joined forces with controversial Eurosceptic “Enough is Enough” party (“Suverenisti” on the graph).

In the most optimistic scenario for the “Serbia Against Violence” list, it could count on all Tadić’s voters from last year’s election, who would be put off by coalition with “Enough is Enough”.

This puts the percentage of “Serbia Against Violence” members in last year’s election at 35%, quite close to 39.6% won by SNS and SRS.

Other part of the opposition, composed of nationalist and conservative parties, has so far submitted two lists – NADA coalition, which ran last year as well and won 6.3% of the vote, and National Rally, composed of Dveri and Zavetnici, who last year won 6.87% running on two separate lists.

Only one other minor party has submitted a list so far, and the deadline for doing so is 26 November. It is expected, however, that all other lists will struggle to get to the necessary 3% thereshold.

What factors will influence the results?

Based on last year’s results and the partial unification, opposition seems to have reasons for optimism this time, especially if the right-wing lists are ready to cooperate with the “Serbia Against Violence” coalition.

Whether the parties will be able to form this potential, ideologically heterogenous coalition – and whether some local MPs will be offered (and tempted) to join the ruling SNS-SPS coalition instead – is an important X factor of the election. Based on the experience of recent years and even decades, shifts of allegiance can not be ruled out.

Another unknown is the number of votes that will remain below the 3% threshold, which will increase the number of seats won by other lists, proportionally to their vote shares. Calculations carried out by political scientist Boban Stojanović show that the “spoilt votes” last year gave the ruling coalition additional 6 seats, bringing it just over the threshold of the majority.

Finally, a lot will depend on the turnout. In 2022, 916,205 citizens went to the polls, which was more than 100,000 increase compared to 2018. The absolute number of votes won by the ruling party decreased only slightly, but its percentage dropped from 45% to 38% due to an increased turnout. How the snap elections only a year and half later will affect the voters remains to be seen.

In addition to this, the opposition has also accused the government of various manipulations that could influence the results. One of the most serious allegations is that SNS had been registering its supporters who otherwise do not in live in Belgrade in the city to enable them to vote in December. Government has denied any such activities and compelling evidence for such an operation is still lacking.