Eurasia Press & News
By combining presidential, parliamentary and local elections in 2022, President Aleksandar Vucic is trying to stop the opposition from taking Belgrade as a springboard to unseat him. But can he be stopped?
President Aleksandar Vucic, whose Serbian Progressive Party, SNS, won Serbia’s parliamentary election in June, has already scheduled new elections, limiting the term of the assembly and government until April 2022, by which point Serbs will go to the polls again.
Why would the most powerful man in the country do this? Why, when his party holds an absolute majority in parliament with 188 of 250 deputies, and why, when the cabinet was handpicked by him, and not the woman he chose to be prime minister again, Ana Brnabic?
There are two reasons why Vucic is playing like this with Serbian democracy.
The June election was neither democratic nor regular, its legitimacy challenged by the bulk of opposition parties which opted to boycott and by some that decided to take part despite not having a hope.
Criticism of the election process also came from the European Commission, which in its regular report on Serbia’s progress towards accession said Vucic “used his function of head of state during the election campaign to gain support for his ruling Progressive Party.”
Some members of the European Parliament – the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, S&D – went further, describing the new makeup of the parliament as a “mockery of democracy” and calling on EU member states to hold off opening any new negotiation chapters with Serbia until a sufficient level of democracy is restored.
The president of Serbia knows that such an election is no basis for a stable and long-lasting government. Though his regime shows no great enthusiasm for joining the EU, it is clear to Vucic that it is not in his long-term interests for relations with the bloc, Serbia’s largest economic partner, to cool. Hence why he decided to mollify his critics, particularly those in Brussels, by announcing new, early elections.
That was not his main motivation, however. Vucic is thinking of how to win the local election in Belgrade. This is the election he knows he must not lose, mindful of how Slobodan Milosevic first lost power in the capital, in 1996, before the virus spread and brought his downfall in 2000.
Belgrade a danger for Vucic
The last election for the Assembly of Belgrade was held in 2018, so its current mandate expires in early March 2022. Vucic’s own term as president ends on April 2 of the same year. This presents Vucic with an ideal opportunity to combine presidential, parliamentary and local elections, and take the triple crown.
That’s why his coalition partner, newly-elected parliament speaker Ivica Dacic, said without hesitation, “This is all preparation for the elections in 2022. We should run as one for the local, parliamentary and presidential elections.”
What’s in it for Vucic? Firstly, he believes he will win the race for president because there is no other candidate in sight capable of mounting a significant challenge. Secondly, an early parliamentary election will present him with the opportunity to “clean” the current, illegitimate, ‘one-party’ parliament. Thirdly, by combining all three, he would put wind in the sails of his candidates for the Belgrade Assembly.
Triple elections would be more difficult for the opposition to monitor, while they also open the door for Vucic personally, as a presidential candidate, to take part in campaigning without being accused of abusing his state post.
The Belgrade election poses a danger for Vucic. In the June parliamentary election, his party fared far worse in the capital than in the rest of Serbia. Across Belgrade, including suburban municipalities, turnout reached just 38.27 per cent, while 3.36 per cent of ballots cast were spoiled. That means that Belgraders boycotted Vucic and the election in big numbers.
In some city municipalities, such as downtown Stari grad, the SNS won only a modest percentage of votes – 16.3 per cent. If voters in Belgrade turn out in force, the SNS will find it hard to hold power in the city.
Vucic, on the other hand, can count on roughly 360,000 ‘safe’ votes in the capital. In that sense, another opposition boycott would suit him. But winning another illegitimate and unfair election would create additional problems for him and increase pressure at home and abroad.
So it’s possible he will yet make some last-minute concessions to the opposition – just enough to lure them to the polls.
Opposition counting on EU involvement
Opposition leaders know that Serbia’s head of state is setting a trap for them. That’s why, in addition to the demand for fair elections [free media, vote monitoring, no government pressure on voters], the opposition is also calling for parliamentary, presidential and local elections to be held separately. The ‘Let’s Not Drown Belgrade’ movement has already tabled such a proposal.
It is clear to the leaders of the opposition that, without EU pressure, the SNS will not refrain from buying votes and blackmailing public sector employees to vote for its candidates. Nor will to relinquish airtime, particularly on public broadcaster Radio-Television Serbia, RTS, to opposition figures.
Dragana Rakic, deputy leader of the opposition Democratic Party, says the opposition and its supporters should persevere. If they do, “the local and parliamentary elections will be separated, RTS will become a real media service for the citizens and MEPs will seriously monitor the entire electoral process,” Rakic said. And, “Aleksandar Vucic loses power in the first free and fair elections.”
Serbia is probably the only country in the world that, since October 28 this year, features a Ministry for Social Dialogue. It is another invention of Vucic intended to fool the opposition, to further exhaust them in aimless negotiations with the once-opposition minister.
Opposition leaders, however, are united in rejecting Vucic’s proposal, arguing that there can be no agreement on the electoral framework without the participation of a representative from Brussels.
“The government is the most important interlocutor, but we must have a mediator in that process with unquestionable credibility, and that can only be the European Union,” said Vuk Jeremic, Serbia’s former foreign minister and leader of the People’s Party.
In the meantime, the opposition is training election monitors in how to detect and prevent vote theft and drawing up its demands for fair and democratic elections.
