"Pensioners let them rejoice, we will again have a significant increase in pensions" exclaimed Aleksandar Vučić, the main candidate for the government in all ten local elections.
At the same time, as "Vreme" writes, the place in nursing homes it went up basically by thirty percent after pensions were increased by 12,2 percent at the end of 2025.
He sees the difference, so he is happy as a retired stork. You also have money - even without buying medicine, diapers or medical examinations, most pensions are not enough to simply cover the costs of accommodation in homes and gerontological centers. And the service in them is falling anyway from year to year.
Progressive ravings
None of this prevents Vučić and the progressive ministers from presenting themselves as retired mothers in the current official campaign. There is Darko Glišić, who embraces every elderly person like a relative.
SNS has a calculation. In December 2025, the CRTE survey showed that two-thirds of those over the age of 65 were against protests. Also, that they are mostly informed on RTS, Pink and other televisions under the control of the regime.
In this sense, it is no wonder that a good number of them believe that students are "destroying the state" and in similar progressive ravings. In addition to this, we are also talking about the population that considers going to the polls as an obligation and finds it difficult to change their attitudes. But this is not all that the progressives have attacked the pensioners for.
Photo: Tanjug/Tanja ValicGetting the votes of pensioners: Free two-day trip to Vrnjačka spa in 2018.
Student factor
The regime worked similarly in previous election cycles. However, thanks to the student protest, older people in the towns and villages of Serbia saw that these girls and boys are not "Ustasha" and traitors, but their granddaughters and grandsons, and that the reality is very different from what they are served on television. That is why Vučić's "great news" for pensioners and Glišić's eagerness to embrace them are among tried and tested methods of manipulating the electorate.
However, every penny that the government gives to pensioners today, will be taken away from them tomorrow. The increase in pensions by 12,2 percent and the increase in the price of homes by thirty percent basically tells what it is about and how it is done.
We shouldn't play.
And something else. The campaign for ten local elections is conducted by the regime as an open war against citizens. He doesn't hide thugs, vote buying, open law breaking, influence peddling, nothing at all.
Pensioners are a particularly vulnerable group - they are exposed to threats and blackmail that their daughters and sons, granddaughters and grandsons will lose their jobs, and they themselves will lose their pensions if they do not vote for the regime. Proverbially concerned about posterity more than themselves, many seniors "don't want to play" and succumb to pressure. Especially when he is publicly wrapped in Vučić's "great news", his "givings" and "miracles" because it is important that "he has work". Threats and blackmail are carried out in the dark.
As long as the current government survives, the pensioners will be sad and miserable, brutally light and shell-shocked. The dramatic rise in prices along with the decline in services in homes for the elderly is just one example of why there is no place for them in Serbia.
