Serbia's Vucic says he will resign and call early elections
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told supporters at a pro-government rally in Belgrade on Saturday that he will resign within “weeks” and call early presidential and parliamentary elections. “I will be president for only a couple of weeks, and then I will resign,” he said, without naming a date or an election timeline. His second term had been set to run into mid-2027.
The announcement is a significant retreat for a leader who has dominated Serbian politics for more than a decade. His Serbian Progressive Party has governed for 14 years, and Vucic has repeatedly cast the protest movement as the work of “foreign agents.” Stepping down ahead of a vote he controls the timing of lets him try to reset the contest on his own terms rather than under continued street pressure.
The protests began in November 2024 after a railway station canopy in Novi Sad collapsed and killed 16 people, an accident demonstrators blamed on corruption and shoddy state-overseen construction. The unrest has already forced out then–Prime Minister Milos Vucevic, who resigned in January 2025. Student organizers, the movement’s core, planned a fresh gathering in Kraljevo on Sunday to keep up demands for early elections.