Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic signs his resignation during a press conference at the Presidential Palace in Belgrade on September 27, 2026. (AFP Photo)
Serbia’s long-time populist President Aleksandar Vucic resigned on Sept. 27 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.
Vucic delivered his resignation speech from the Presidential Palace in Belgrade, where supporters gathered outside chanting his name.
“I am resigning as president,” Vucic said. “Tomorrow morning I will hand over my duties to the parliament speaker.”
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.
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.
Initial calls for a transparent investigation grew into demands for snap elections, which Vucic had repeatedly promised without setting a date.
Earlier this month however, he called an Oct. 25 vote, citing “major turbulence on the domestic political scene.”
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.
“I want to compete as an ordinary man, as one of the people,” Vucic said.
He now heads the electoral list of his right-wing populist Serbian Progressive Party and is its candidate for prime minister.
Minutes before resigning, Vucic used his constitutional powers to pardon dozens of people, including students and his party loyalists, suspected of offenses during the protests.
