Serbia’s President resigns to run for PM in October election

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Serbia’s long-time populist President Aleksandar Vucic resigned Sunday to run for prime minister in October snap elections after nearly two years of student-led protests that had been pressing for just such a poll.

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Vucic delivered his resignation speech from the presidential palace in Belgrade, where supporters gathered outside chanting his name.

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“I am resigning as president,” Vucic said. “Tomorrow morning I will hand over my duties to the parliament speaker.”

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The snap election was a key demand of a student-led movement sparked by the November 2024 collapse of a canopy at Novi Sad railway station that killed 16 people and was widely blamed on corruption.

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The tragedy triggered some of Serbia’s largest protests since the fall of Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, at times drawing hundreds of thousands.

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Initial calls for a transparent investigation grew into demands for snap elections, which Vucic had repeatedly promised without setting a date.

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Earlier this month however, he called an October 25 vote, citing “major turbulence on the domestic political scene”.

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First elected president in 2017 and re-elected in May 2022, Vucic cut short his five-year term to campaign for prime minister, although the law did not require him to resign.

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“I want to compete as an ordinary man, as one of the people,” Vucic said.

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He now heads the electoral list of his right-wing populist Serbian Progressive Party and is its candidate for prime minister.

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Minutes before resigning, Vucic used his constitutional powers to pardon dozens of people, including students and his party loyalists, suspected of offences during the protests.

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“I have decided to pardon 49 people, 23 of them in connection with the terrible events we have gone through over the past year and a half,” Vucic said, referring to the protests.

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Under the law, parliament speaker Ana Brnabic now becomes acting president for up to three months, during which a presidential election must be called.

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