This file photo shows Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. (AP Photo)
Serbia’s president on Sept. 9 dissolved parliament and called snap elections for Oct. 25, accepting a key demand of the student-led protest movement.
Parliamentary elections were not due until December 2027, but President Aleksandar Vucic signed a decree calling for the early vote after nearly two years of anti-government unrest.
The country has been gripped since November 2024 by a major protest movement sparked by the deadly collapse of a railway station canopy in the northern city of Novi Sad.
The accident, which killed 16 people, fueled anger among hundreds of thousands of citizens led by a student movement, who saw it as the result of corruption they say is rife in the Balkan country as it negotiates accession to the EU.
Initial calls for a transparent investigation into the tragedy gradually evolved into demands for snap elections, which Vucic had repeatedly promised to hold.
Nationalist Vucic, 56, has held power as either prime minister or president for more than a decade. Elected president in 2017 and re-elected in 2022 to a five-year term, he recently said he would resign immediately after formally calling the parliamentary election in order to campaign, signaling his ambition to return to the post of prime minister.
