And there we have it: yet another proposed date for parliamentary elections in Serbia. This time, according to President Aleksandar Vučić, they may take place on either 18 or 25 October, writes Helena Ivanov.
But, this is not the first date the President has suggested. Earlier this year, July was among the possibilities mentioned – which, obviously, did not happen. In June, Vučić went considerably further, announcing that he would remain President for only a few more weeks, after which he would resign and support the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, potentially as its candidate for Prime Minister. More than a few weeks have since passed, and he remains President.
In the meantime, October, November, December and even January 2027 have all been suggested at various points in the never-ending discussion over when Serbia will actually go to the polls.
And then, a few days ago, speaking to the Radio Television of Serbia, the country’s public broadcaster, Vučić claimed that he had finally made his decision: parliamentary elections would take place on either 18 or 25 October. Even this supposedly final announcement, of course, still leaves us with two dates.
A foreign reader may reasonably wonder why there has been so much drama over when, exactly, Serbia will hold its next elections. But domestically, this constant pushing back of the date has raised eyebrows for another reason: Vučić has historically been anything but reluctant to call an election.
Since the Serbian Progressive Party came to power in 2012, Serbia has held four rounds of snap parliamentary elections: in 2014, 2016, 2022 and 2023. Snap elections have, in other words, become quite regular in Serbia’s political life.
Vučić repeatedly used them at times of political pressure. When the country entered a crisis, or when protests threatened to gain momentum, an election offered an opportunity to reset the political landscape. Most recently, after the two mass shootings in May 2023 triggered months of large anti-government protests, Serbia went to early parliamentary elections that December. Vučić’s coalition won, and the protest movement gradually lost momentum.
The political logic was relatively straightforward. Each electoral victory allowed Vučić to present the result as renewed democratic legitimacy and, in practice, helped kill the momentum from the streets.
This time, however, things have been different.
The student-led protests that began following the collapse of the Novi Sad railway station canopy in November 2024 grew into something far more durable than previous protest movements. More importantly, they eventually transformed from a protest movement into one that is openly demanding political change. Since May 2025, students have explicitly called for snap elections.
Unlike previous waves of protest, this one did not simply disappear after several weeks or months. It survived for well over a year, repeatedly bringing enormous numbers of people onto the streets across Serbia. For example, on 15th March 2025, it is estimated that as many as 350,000 people attended the protest in Belgrade, making it the largest protest in Serbia’s contemporary political history.
The students have also stated that they intend to contest the election through a list of 250 MP candidates. Crucially, these candidates are not expected to be the students themselves. Rather, the movement has been selecting people it considers capable of representing its demands, while deliberately distancing itself from both the existing opposition and the ruling establishment. As of today, the names of those on the list remain unknown, with students stating that the list will only become public when the elections are officially called.
And yet, despite his previous willingness to resort to elections to end the protests, Vučić spent more than a year refusing to give the students precisely what they were asking for.
That reversal inevitably produced speculation that, unlike on previous occasions, the President was no longer quite as confident that an election would resolve the crisis in his favour. Vučić himself has never said anything to suggest that he fears losing, and he continues to project confidence in his party’s prospects. But he has also never offered a particularly convincing reason for why a political leader who once reached for snap elections so readily became so reluctant to call one all of a sudden.
This is ultimately why the endless discussion over dates matters. The question is not whether Serbia votes on 18th October, 25th October or some later date. It is why elections, once one of Vučić’s favourite tools for consolidating power, suddenly became something he appeared determined to postpone for as long as possible.
There is one potential, and relatively simple answer: he needed time to get his ducks in order, weaken the protests’ momentum, and try to win the public back before going to the polls. And indeed, while Vučić has been reluctant to formally call elections, he has certainly not been reluctant to campaign. Quite the opposite. For months, he has been campaigning in full gear.
He has toured Serbia, met citizens, announced new projects and attempted to address some of the voters’ grievances. He has promised another package of direct financial assistance, including the possibility of cash payments to all adult citizens. In July, Vučić also launched the Ko si bre ti? [Who The Hell Do You Think You Are?] portal, through which citizens can anonymously report public officials for corruption, abuse of office, or unlawful behaviour.
The political purpose is not particularly difficult to understand. The message is that Vučić has heard the public, that he understands why people are angry, and that he will fix the very problems that brought people onto the streets in the first place.
Moreover, by launching the portal, Vučić has reinforced the message that citizens’ grievances are not his fault, but that of other officials whom he intends to hold accountable.
Of course, Vučić’s campaign has also been accompanied by sustained media attacks against the students and virtually anyone associated with the movement, aimed at discrediting the protesters, their demands and, increasingly, their very ability to govern the country.
The same campaigning effort is visible in foreign policy. Vučić has continued doing what he has always done particularly well: maintaining relationships in virtually every direction and presenting himself domestically as the only figure capable of speaking to everyone.
In May, despite the EU’s pressure not to do so, he went to Moscow for the Victory Day parade. That same month, he travelled to China for a state visit with Xi Jinping. He has repeatedly courted the Trump administration and publicly invited President Donald Trump to Serbia on many occasions. In July, to the surprise of many, the European Commission recommended opening Cluster 3 in Serbia’s EU Accession talks, although the move was ultimately blocked by several member states. And, perhaps most strikingly, in August, Vučić hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Belgrade, despite Serbia refusal to impose sanctions on Moscow. All of this has reinforced one of Vučić’s key messages: that he is the only man capable of keeping Serbia on good terms with Beijing, Washington, Brussels, Moscow and now apparently Kyiv simultaneously and at a geopolitically very complex time.
Taken together, Vučić’s strategy becomes fairly obvious: delay the elections for as long as possible, use the extra time to get a head start on campaigning, and call them only once he believes the political tide has turned sufficiently in his favour. This also gives him a considerable advantage once the official campaign begins, as his opponents will only have a few weeks to catch up with what has effectively been his months-long campaign.
The real test will therefore begin when the elections are finally called. The students have demonstrated that they can mobilise hundreds of thousands of people on the streets. They now have to demonstrate that they can turn that mobilisation into votes and defeat a political veteran who has spent more than a decade perfecting the art of winning elections.
As for Vučić, he is set to find out whether the political instrument he once used so effectively to end protests can still save him from the most persistent protest movement of his rule.
