On the 3rd of April 2022, Serbian general elections were held. The current ruling parties, SNS and SPS, faced the challenge of securing and legitimizing their rule for the next 4-5 years and for the opposition a slight opportunity emerged to introduce a change in the political atmosphere in Serbia.
More than 20 days after the elections there is still a great uncertainty about composition of the future national government and the new Belgrade city council – only one is unquestionable: Aleksandar Vucic will be Serbian President for the next 5 years. With a turnout of 58.63 percent – which is 4% more than in the last presidential election – Aleksandar Vucic secured 58.58% of the votes. The second-best candidate was Zdravko Ponos, retired General of the Serbian Armed Forces, who was nominated and supported by the “United for the Victory of Serbia” coalition – he won 18.40% of the total votes. Once again, Aleksandar Vucic won with a landslide victory in the presidential elections and strengthened his own rule – this allows him to do what he pleases in domestic politics and creates more space for him to maneuver in the international arena.
Parliament shifts towards the right
If one analyses the results of the parliamentarian election, it becomes more than obvious that the next parliament will be much more divers than the previous one – this time the opposition parties have chosen to participate in the elections, rather than boycotting them. The “pro-democratic” & centrist opposition parties (People’s Party, Party of Freedom and Justice, Democratic Party, Movement of Free Citizens & others) formed the coalition “United for the Victory of Serbia” for the elections and proposed their candidates for presidential, parliamentary and Belgrade elections. The collation “NADA – National Democratic Alternative” emerged from the unification of the right-wing Democratic Party of Serbia and other minor political movements and parties to create the coalition for the elections. On the other hand, the coalition “Moramo” came out from the ecological uprisings and protests in Serbia which started in 2021. It is a coalition of parties/movements which represent the green politics, pro-europeanism and are being considered as leftists. The cooperation between the far-right DVERI party and POKS (Movement for the Restoration of the Kingdom of Serbia) movement, resulted in another right-wing collation. Serbian Party Oathkeepers (Zavetnici) was formed after a split from the Serbian Radical Party – in its program it stands for ultranationalism and social conservatism. They participated in the general elections on their own. All the opposition parties listed above surpassed the electoral threshold of 3% on the parliamentary elections and will be part of the next legislative period.
On the one hand, the diversity of the next parliament will be the main contributor to the quality of the parliamentarian debates, but on the other hand one can notice a great shift towards the right-wing political spectrum. Besides the coalitions “Moramo” & “United for the Victory of Serbia”, all other political parties in the parliament represent conservative and nationalist policies.
The impact of elections on the geopolitical positioning of Serbia
The ruling SNS got around 43% of the votes and SPS (SNS’s coalition partner in the last government) got just under 13%. Furthermore, Vucic’s SNS needs a coalition partner to form the new cabinet – this could either be Ivica Dacic’s SPS or an opposition party. SPS and right-wing opposition parties (coalition “NADA”, DVERI-POKS, Zavetnici), which could consider forming the next government with SNS, have strong and traditional ties to Russia and President Putin. If Vucic chooses to impose sanctions on Russia, he would primarily need to convince his coalition partner and most people – SPS or any right-wing opposition party as a collation partner for SNS which would make it nearly impossible for Vucic to easily impose sanctions. Yet, one needs to consider this also as an opportunity for Vucic to blame the future coalition partner on not imposing the sanctions and by doing this to maintain a friendly relationship with Russia, without losing his personal support from the EU politicans. Undoubtfully, the pressure from EU and the US to impose sanctions on Russia will rise. One can see the uncertainty in Vucic’s behavior after the general elections: he desperately needs a coalition partner who would support him in his future decisions, but he has not yet managed to decide who this will be. The ideal government would be a unified, strong and pro-European government, but there is no suitable coalition partner to fulfill these requirements – the coalition “United for the Victory of Serbia” & “Moramo”, whom this role would suit the best, explicitly declared that a coalition with Vucic is not possible, under any circumstances.
Towards the end of April, Vucic announced that he will hold a press conference in which he will present the future path of Serbian domestic and especially foreign politics – with clear intention to make his plans public, regarding Serbian politics concerning the Ukraine-Russia war public. However, several days ago, he postponed this press conference – this is a clear sign of his, still ongoing, calculations regarding the formation of the new cabinet.
How did Serbia end up in this current position?
As an EU candidate country, Serbia should have had a clear and straight forward foreign policy which represents EU values and goes hand in hand with EU’s foreign and security policy. The EU’s pressure on Serbia to implement sanctions against Russia is a clear sign of failure, when it comes to the previous relationship the EU has had with Serbia and President Vucic. Over the last decade, Vucic has repeatedly promoted Russian influence and EU skepticism in Serbia. By not doing anything about that, it seems that the EU choose to advocate for stability in the Western Balkans and not for promoting and strengthening its own values and position in the region. The cost of full EU presence in Serbia was greater than the cost of supporting an authoritarian President who would paint a false picture of stability in the Region – especially when it comes to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. This price will be paid now, not by the EU nor by Vucic, but by ordinary Serbian citizens.
Furthermore, at least now, it should be clear to Vucic and to all Serbian politicians, that sitting on two/three chairs and advocating for “neutrality” will not be possible in the upcoming years, if not even decades. Serbia is, and will remain, an EU candidate country and should continue down this road.
An opportunity for potential change?
After the general elections, one thing is certain: SNS won in the parliamentary elections and Vucic won in the presidential elections. This means that, whatever is going to happen in the near future, SNS will be the ruling party in Serbia. Nevertheless, the opposition managed to question the majority in the Belgrade City Assembly – SNS won approximately 38%, “United for the Victory of Serbia” around 21%, “Moramo” around 11%, SPS around 7%, “NADA” around 6%, “Zavetnici” around 3.5% and DVERI-POKS around 3.5%. The outcome of the Belgrade elections created a possibility for the opposition to put aside their differences and to create a government in Belgrade. SNS would need two coalition partners to form the new government in Belgrade – SPS would certainly be one of them, but for the second one, they would need to find somebody from the opposition. This created a certain mistrust between the opposition parties, which furthermore lowered the chances for the opposition to unite and to form a new government in Belgrade, for which they would in any case need the support of SPS – Vucic’s long-lasting partner over the last years.
This unfavorable situation, for both sides, created space for the idea of repeating the elections in Belgrade in order to paint a clearer picture of the political situation in Belgrade and to ease the process of forming the future Belgrade government.
If the elections are to be repeated and the opposition parties manage to win the majority in Belgrade and to form a new government, this would have a great impact on the national politics. It would be for the first time, in the last 10 years, that the ruling SNS party lost elections and the opportunity to rule. Many projects which were undertaken in Belgrade, during the SNS government, are being questioned by the public – the contracts of the biggest project “Beograd na vodi – Belgrade Waterfront” are still hidden from the public, since the agreements are classified. If the opposition assumes power in Belgrade and starts investigating projects like this, it will create more political diversity in Serbia and encourage people to question the ruling party, and its works, in other parts of Serbia, too.
Dear President, at least put an end to Serbian geopolitical wandering.
Over the next weeks, President Vucic will decide how Serbia will position itself in this new international arena of geopolitics. It would be in the best interest of Serbia to continue down the EU road and strengthen its position and image within the Union. After 30 years of unfinished transition and choosing between East and West, Serbia must decide its future now. Slobodan Milosevic failed to acknowledge the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc, which poorly influenced his atrocious domestic and foreign politics. More than 30 years later, Vucic could now use this opportunity and choose the right path if he would like to be remembered at least as a good foreign statesman and not as a disastrous leader, like Milosevic was.
Luka Čekić is a Project Assistant at the International Institute for Peace. He graduated from the German School of Athens and received his BA in Political Science from the University of Vienna. He is currently in his first year of studies in Political Science (MA) at the University of Vienna. His areas of interest include International Politics and Relations, Nuclear Non-Proliferation, Disarmament and Arms Control and Western Balkans.