Speculations that the elections in Serbia will be held on July 12 have spread so much that they are being talked about as a fact. So far, we only know that the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, has announced the date when he will tell us the date of the election: he will announce on May 6 what he has decided, therefore, for St. George's Day.
And speaking of red letters, he also said that he is preparing a large meeting of the Serbian Progressive Party for Vidovdan, that is, June 28. He saw the students marking the anniversaries of last year's large protests, so he too would like to mark the year since he ordered the ceremonial start of fierce police brutality against the students and the people. And maybe just to feel competent.
It is hard to believe that a 56-year-old man, who is still accomplished, made it to the state president, it hurts that the students told him in December 2024 what is written in the Constitution: that he is not competent to determine criminal responsibility for the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad. In essence, the only topic over which he is competent, but which he manages to impose on the public in recent months, is the elections.
And now he is teasing us with that topic in the style of folk artist Saška Karan's song ("I'll give, I'll give, I'll give, but what will I do, but I still care to torture you a little"). We would like to underline one more time if the audience doesn't mind: a grown man, mature...
BIZARRE ANNIVERSARY
If he were to call for extraordinary parliamentary elections now, Vučić would fulfill the request of the Blockade Students, almost exactly on the anniversary of the submission of that request.
Therefore, on May 5, 2025, Students in the blockade of all higher education institutions announced on their profiles on social networks that they are demanding the immediate dissolution of the National Assembly and the calling of extraordinary parliamentary elections.
"I can't wait for them to turn to that incompetent institution in question with a request to call for extraordinary parliamentary elections, because according to our Constitution, only it can do that," said the President of the National Assembly, Ana Brnabić, on TV Pink. "I am waiting to see how they will break their word and promise to all the citizens of Serbia, and above all to those who supported them the most and who then admired their intelligence and wisdom, how they found that wonderful term, the incompetent subject institution".
ARE WE GOING TO BE SERIOUS OR THE OLD WAY?
From then until now - even though we don't have an election date - students have been working as if they were in three weeks. From August 2025 until the end of this month, through the "Student in every village" campaign, they have visited almost every chukka in Serbia and do not intend to stop. On the website of the action (suss.rs) there is an interactive map with a pin and the date of each place they visited. If you enlarge the map just enough to see the Western Balkans, the whole of Serbia is covered in blue by those pins that mark where everyone has been.
"Students enter the campaign more ready than any other SNS challenger since 2012. First, there is the activity ‛Student in every village‛, which continues regularly and is one of the biggest assets of the student movement since its inception," Aleksandar Ivković, analyst and author on the "Savremena politika" portal, told "Vreme". He adds that they also have a database that they created by collecting signatures in December and that they use to communicate with potential voters. It is about the action held on December 28, 2025 in all of Serbia, when students collected more than 400.000 signatures of citizens who want to join their actions in various ways in one day.
Ivković adds that we now have a campaign: "It can certainly be called a 'Students are winning' campaign. It consists of handing out stickers, hanging banners and cooperating with choirs. It can be seen that this cooperation exists and that its goal is to spread the message that students are really winning".
He says that this action is very successful, since it is quite widespread, at least in the cities of Serbia: "It is mentioned, although I have no confirmation when it could be, a rally in Slavia, which, I assume, could be the highlight of the 'Students win' campaign."
During that time, in the opposition, things go as before: they agree when they want to agree. On Wednesday, April 22, representatives of nine opposition parties met: the People's Movement of Serbia, the Freedom and Justice Party, the Green-Left Front, the Ecological Uprising, the Serbia Center Party, the Movement of Free Citizens, the Social Democrats, the Movement for Decentralization, and the New Face of Serbia. Representatives of the Kreni-promeni movement, the New DSS and the Democratic Party were also invited, but they did not respond. The leader of the Democratic Party, Srđan Milivojević, reiterated that the party will exclusively support the Student List.
There was no conclusion.
Bojana J, a member of one of the New Belgrade choirs, tells "Vreme" that all choirs are actively working on preparations for the elections: "For now, actions are organized with students in every village almost every weekend. Lists of controllers and mobile teams are being prepared. Everything is done in cooperation with students. Promotional actions, distribution of stickers, collection of donations are also being carried out. Currently, the emphasis is on mobilization for election controllers and mobile teams."
This woman from Belgrade, as well as her entire choir, attended the local elections in Bor as observers, and they also received training for election observation and control. And that's where the question arises: how did the students succeed in what the opposition did not - to initiate and mobilize a huge number of citizens who now know the course of the election process "by hand" and are preparing to actively participate in it.
Bojana explains it from her perspective: "As a family, we have always voted against this government. We have been at all the protests, from Savamala to today. But we have never been involved in politics more than that."
Why now?
"Of course, it's partly due to the fact that they are young, energetic, that they beat Serbia on their feet in those marches," says Bojana. "But the main thing is that now it was easy. They invited the citizens to join the choirs and here I am. For the first time I knew how to get involved and how everyone can get involved. No one came in a jacket and tie to walk around the neighborhood with an escort, the students called, we responded and now we work together," she says.
"We haven't seen any of that at nearly that level, or we've seen it from the opposition forces in previous election cycles," says Aleksandar Ivković. "Of course, it was not only their fault, but a consequence of the circumstances in which they worked, but the fact remains that the student movement is currently showing a much higher level of readiness than others have shown in previous election cycles."
Ivković believes that the list of students and the program, which we know are being worked on, remain to be seen. However, he points out that it is very important to see if the students have a campaign plan, that is, "whether the student movement will be able to publish the student list and the student program from the first day after the announcement of the election, and have a plan for what to do every day of the campaign from the announcement to the day of the vote. If they quickly come out with all that, it will be a sign that they are ready and the government will not be able to catch them on the wrong foot. We do not know how all this is going, but based on the visible elements, we can assume that their level of preparation is currently sufficient for a successful campaign. There are also trainings for controllers, which is another indicator of preparedness that did not exist until now. The question remains whether the campaign and the election will be enough to win. But the only question here is whether that readiness can lead to victory."
photo: marija jankovićVANDALIZATION OF BELGRADE: Progressive campaign
AND WHAT ARE THE GOVERNMENTS DOING?
The government, on the other hand, always has a certain level of readiness that can mobilize their electorate and take them to the polls. Now their problem is that it might not be enough for them to win a majority in the parliament. According to all research, the only thing that could save Vučić and the team is a miracle that would reduce the turnout on the opposition side. We saw that in the 10 municipalities where elections were held in March: beatings, theft of election materials, breaking heads, punctures...
"The 'Students Win' campaign serves to motivate and keep the electorate motivated," says Ivković, who sees the presidential elections as one of the risk factors. "We don't know if the students are ready for them, if they have a candidate, which is the main thing that must be done, the candidate and the preparation. Therefore, the decision to call presidential elections could rather surprise the students, because we have no indication that the students have a decision about the presidential candidate, but, on the other hand, calling extraordinary presidential elections carries risks for the government, so I would still bet that they will be held in the regular time or close to the regular time."
From the perspective of the choirs, the government enters the campaign in a very strange way by vandalizing Belgrade with graffiti "FCK BLK", "Blokaderi strokaderi", "Ustaše" etc.
"In my opinion, it's a desperate move," says Bojana J. "They have to remove the stands as ordered, even though, obviously, no one approaches them. Graffiti is another story, classic vandalism with which they try to annoy people," she says. "We will wash the graffiti. And again if they scribble, we will wash it again, as many times as necessary."
AND WHY WOULD VUCIĆ CALL THE ELECTIONS NOW?
Since we accepted the rumors as facts, we didn't have time to ask why the election suits Vučić now. We know that he only advertises them when he knows he can get them. If the elections really take place in the summer, are they perhaps the product of Vučić's realization that his party's rating is in free fall, and it is better to call them now while he can still have a serious number of deputies in the parliament, even as an opposition, but as the "strongest opposition group"?
Aleksandar Ivković does not think that the rating of SNS is falling so dizzyingly, but that it is not good either. "Although the government is now in the most vulnerable position since 2012, I would not say that their rating is in free fall. I think that the entire ruling coalition, not only SNS, but also its partners, could win slightly fewer votes in absolute numbers than it was in 2023. However, it will not be significantly less, and we can claim that based on local elections and on the basis of some public opinion surveys that appear periodically. What can happen to them, although their the number of votes remains the same or a little less, it is exactly that: that a much larger number of people go out to vote and thus their percentage of votes will decrease. This will probably be the case, but the result of the election cannot be predicted from this. I think that it will definitely be close - it can go either way."
He adds that, if the elections are indeed held in the summer, the reason will be that the government estimates that there will be no better moment for the elections than this as time goes by. The circumstances in which they would go to the elections later this year or early next year can only be worse for them. It may be related to the economic situation, it is possible that it will worsen due to the war in Iran but also other factors.
"The authorities counted on the fact that this year will be economically more successful than the previous one, but it seems that this is not the case," says Ivković. "If the elections are held in the summer, two factors are mentioned. One is that people will go on annual vacations, and I don't think it will affect the election result as much as people fear now. The second factor is mentioned is the sudden capture of the opponent, which is not the case."
The key factor, which is the least mentioned, is that the government will assess that after the summer it will not have a better situation for itself when it comes to the election result, because after the summer, due to the economic situation, additional crowning of voters may happen to them, Ivković believes and adds that if there are no elections in the summer, it means that, of course, they have assessed that they would not be able to easily win them in the summer. "But it would also mean that they are still hoping that things could somehow turn in their favor, which is not completely out of the question, but the likelihood of that seems less and less as time goes on."
PERSPECTIVE OF A DESPERATE PERSON
And while we are talking about whether there will be an election or not, the one who is competent to decide about it is still suffering because the crowd spontaneously and willingly cheered for someone else, not him, over there under the balcony of the Rectorate of the University of Belgrade.
"Vladan Đokić is a great leader, Europe built him, the whole West built him," Aleksandar Vučić said on April 25 on Serbian Radio and Television. "We are talking about a man who is many years older than me, an experienced man. On his side are foreign financial support and help, a huge media regional, European and world machinery. On my side, just to make a joke, are youth and perspective, but it will certainly be difficult and extremely demanding", said the president of the state (56), about professor Vladan Đokić (62), rector of the University of Belgrade.
Perhaps no one would have remembered Đokić as a possible presidential candidate if the same Vučić had not sent the Criminal Police Department to the Rectorate on that warm and sunny morning of March 31.
Neither Europe nor the "whole West" produced Djokić as a leader, but a policy that destroyed everything in front of it, and is now unintentionally destroying itself. It is, of course, about the policy of the Serbian Progressive Party, which, when it is no longer in power, nobody's mother will cry.
Real journalism costs money, and we will not be bought by tycoons and corporations. Support us with a one-time or monthly donation. The time for it is now!
