Serbia: Experts assert that because President Vucic chose to have urgent national elections rather than just in Belgrade, a larger campaign will now overshadow his party’s unpopularity in the city
Local elections in the province of Vojvodina and the nation’s capital, Belgrade, as well as urgent parliamentary elections, are all scheduled for December 17.
According to experts who spoke with BIRN, Vucic used the opposition’s call for elections to his own benefit in an effort to boost the performance of his ruling Serbian Progressive Party, SNS.
Cvijetin Milivojevic, a political expert, stated: “Vucic understands the SNS is polling far worse in Belgrade than in the country as a whole. After their rallies were unsuccessful, the opposition wanted legislative elections as well.
Initially, they had only called for elections in Belgrade, where they could win.
This is good for Vucic because he can now get involved in the campaign and discuss the problems in Belgrade through a parliamentary campaign.
In the capital, according to Milivojevic, the opposition had a decent chance of winning.
However, he noted that given the prevailing instability in the world, particularly in Israel/Gaza, the violent episode in Banjska in northern Kosovo on September 24, in which a Kosovo policeman and three Serb militants were killed in a shootout, would not damage Vucic much.